The Case of the Velvet Claws pm-1

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “No,” she said, “he came to the house.”

  “He did what?”

  “It’s a fact,” she went on. “I told him not to, but he came anyway. He wanted to talk with me, and I told him that I wouldn’t, that I couldn’t see him. So he came to the house. You had told him that George was the owner of Spicy Bits. At first he wouldn’t believe it. Finally he did. Then he wanted to talk with George. He thought that he could explain to George. He was willing to do anything in order to keep Spicy Bits from going ahead with its attack.”

  “You didn’t know he was coming?” he asked.

  “No.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  Then she said, “How did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “About the shoes being the code he used.”

  “Oh, he told me,” said Mason.

  “And then the housekeeper told you about the message?” she asked. “I wonder if she told the police.”

  Mason shook his head, and smiled.

  “No,” he said, “she didn’t tell the police and she didn’t tell me. That was just a little bluff I resorted to in order to get you to give me the real facts. I knew that you must have seen Harrison Burke some time last night, and I knew that he was the kind that would be trying to get in touch with you. When he’s worried, he wants some one to share his worry with him. So I figured that he must have left that message with the maid.”

  She looked hurt.

  “Do you think that’s a nice way to treat me?” she asked. “Do you think that’s being fair with me?”

  He grinned.

  “What a sweet angel you are to sit around and talk to a man about playing fair.”

  She pouted. “I don’t like that,” she said.

  “I didn’t think you would,” he told her. “There’s going to be lots about this you don’t like before we get done. So Harrison Burke came to the house, did he?”

  “Yes,” she said in a weak voice.

  “All right, what happened?”

  “He kept insisting that he wanted to see George. I told him that it would be suicidal even to go near George. He said that he wouldn’t mention my name at all. He thought that if he could go to George and explain the circumstances to him, and tell him that he was willing to do anything after he was elected George would order Frank Locke to lay off the publicity.”

  “All right,” said Mason, “now we are getting someplace. He wanted to go see your husband, and you tried to keep him from doing it. Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why,” he asked, “did you want to keep him from doing it?”

  She said slowly, “I was afraid that he would mention my name.”

  “Did he?” asked Mason.

  “I don’t know,” she said, and then suddenly added: “That is, of course not, he didn’t see George at all. He talked with me, and I convinced him that he mustn’t talk with George. And then he left the house.”

  Perry Mason chuckled. “You thought of that trap just a little bit too late, young lady. So you don’t know whether or not he mentioned your name to George, eh?”

  She said sullenly: “I told you he didn’t see him.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I know, but the fact is that he did see him. He went upstairs to his study and talked with him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because,” he said, “I’ve got a theory about this thing, and I want to run it down. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what happened.”

  “What did happen?” she asked.

  He grinned at her.

  “You know what happened,” he told her.

  “No, no,” she said, “what was it that happened?”

  His voice was a steady, expressionless monotone. “So Harrison Burke went upstairs and talked with your husband,” he droned. “How long was he up there?”

  “I don’t know. Not over fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s better. And you didn’t see him after he came down?”

  “No.”

  “Now, as a matter of fact,” he inquired, “was there a shot fired while Harrison Burke was up there, and then did he run down the stairs, and out of the house without saying anything to you?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “No,” she said, “Burke left before my husband was shot.”

  “How long before?”

  “I don’t know, perhaps fifteen minutes. Perhaps longer. Perhaps not quite so long.”

  “And now,” he pointed out, “Harrison Burke can’t be found.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. He can’t be found. He doesn’t answer his telephone. He isn’t at his residence.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I kept trying to get him on the telephone, and I sent detectives out to his residence.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because I knew he was going to be implicated in the shooting.”

  She widened her eyes again. “How could that be?” she asked. “Nobody knows that he was out at the house except us. And of course we wouldn’t tell, because that would make the situation that much worse for everybody. He left before the other man came, who fired the shot.”

  Perry Mason held her eyes in a steady gaze. “It was his gun that fired the shot,” he said, slowly.

  She stared at him, her eyes startled.

  “What makes you say that?” she asked.

  “Because,” he told her, “there was a number on the gun. That number can be traced from the factory to the wholesaler, from the wholesaler to the retailer, and from the retailer to the man who bought the gun. It was a fellow named Pete Mitchell, who lives at thirteen twenty-two West Sixty-ninth Street, and was a close friend of Harrison Burke’s. The police are rounding up Mitchell, and when they get him, he’ll have to explain what he did with the gun. That is, that he gave it to Burke.”

  She put a hand to her throat.

  “How can they trace guns like that?”

  “There’s a record kept of everything.”

  “I knew that we should have done something with that gun,” she said almost hysterically.

  He said, “Yes, and then you would have put your head in the noose. You’ve got yourself to think of. Your own position in this is none too pretty. You want to save Burke, of course, if you can. But the thing that I’m trying to bring out is that if Burke did the thing, you’d better come clean and tell me. Then, if we can keep Burke out of it, we will. But I don’t want you to get in the position where they build up a case against you, while you’re trying to shield Burke.”

  She started to pace the floor, twisting her handkerchief in her fingers.

  “Oh, my God!” she said. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

  “I don’t know whether or not it’s ever occurred to you,” he said, “but there’s a penalty for being an accessory after the fact, or for compounding a felony. Now, we don’t either one of us want to get in that position. What we want to do is to find out who did this thing, and find it out before the police do. I don’t want them to frame a murder charge on you, and I don’t want them to frame one on me. If Burke is guilty, the thing to do is to get in touch with Burke, and get him to surrender himself, and rush the case through to a trial before the District Attorney’s office can get too much evidence. I’m going to take steps to see that Locke keeps quiet, and call off this blackmail article in Spicy Bits.”

  She stared at him for a moment, and then asked, “How are you going to do that?”

  He smiled at her. “In this game,” he said, “I’m the one that has to know everything. The less you know, the less you stand a chance of telling.”

  “You can trust me. I can keep a secret,” she told him.

  “You’re a good liar,” he said judiciously, “if that’s what you mean. But this is once where you won’t have to lie, because you won’t know what’s going on.”

  “But Burke didn’t do it,” she insisted.

  He frowned at her.

&
nbsp; “Now listen,” he said, “that’s the reason I wanted to get in touch with you. If Burke didn’t do it, who did?”

  She shifted her eyes. “I told you some man had a conference with my husband. I don’t know who he was. I thought it was you. It sounded like your voice.”

  He got to his feet, and his face darkened.

  “Listen,” he said, “if you go trying that kind of a game on me, I’ll throw you to the wolves. You’ve tried that game once. That’s enough.”

  She started to cry and sobbed. “I c-c-can’t help it. You asked me. There’s nobody listening. I t-t-t-told you who it w-w-was. I heard your v-v-voice. I won’t t-t-tell the p-p-police, not even if they t-t-torture me!”

  He took her by the shoulders and slammed her down on the bed. He pulled her hands from her face and stared at her eyes. There was no trace of tears in them.

  “Now listen,” he said, “you didn’t hear my voice, because I wasn’t there at all. And cut out that sobbing act—unless you’ve got an onion in your handkerchief!”

  “Then it was somebody whose voice sounded like yours,” she insisted.

  He scowled at her.

  “Are you in love with Burke?” he asked. “And trying to put me in a position where you can throw me over in case I can’t square the thing for Burke?”

  “No. You wanted me to tell the truth, and I’m telling it.”

  “I’m tempted to get up and walk out on you, and leave you with the whole mess on your hands,” he threatened.

  She said, demurely, “Then, of course, I’d have to tell the police whose voice it was I heard in that room.”

  “So that’s your little game, eh?”

  “I haven’t any game. I’m telling the truth.” Her voice was sweet, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

  Mason sighed. “I never went back on a client yet, guilty or innocent,” he said. “I’m trying to remember that. But, by God! It’s a temptation to walk out on you!”

  She sat on the bed and twisted her handkerchief about her fingers.

  In a moment he began to talk, “On my way back down the hill, after I’d left your house, I stopped to talk with the clerk in the drug store where you telephoned to me. He was watching you when you went in the telephone booth, which was only natural. A woman in evening clothes, with a man’s coat on, who is sopping wet, and goes into a telephone booth, in an all night drug store, after midnight, is naturally going to attract some attention. Now this clerk told me that you called two telephone numbers.”

  Wide-eyed she looked at him, but she said nothing.

  “Who did you call besides me?” he asked.

  “Nobody,” she said, “the clerk’s mistaken.”

  Perry Mason put on his hat and pulled it low down over his forehead. He turned to Eva Belter and said savagely, “I’m going to get you out of this somehow. I don’t know just how. But I’m going to get you out of it. And, by God, it’s going to cost you money!”

  He jerked open the door, went out into the hall, and slammed the door behind him. The first light of dawn was coloring the eastern sky.

  Chapter 12

  The first rays of the early morning sun were gilding the tops of the buildings, when Perry Mason got hold of Harrison Burke’s housekeeper.

  She was fifty-seven or eight years old, heavily fleshed, filled with animosity. Her eyes were sparkling with hostility.

  “I don’t care who you are,” she said, truculently. “I tell you that he isn’t here. I don’t know where he is. He was out until around midnight, then he got a telephone call, and went out again. After that, the telephone kept ringing all night. I didn’t answer it, because I knew he wasn’t here, and my feet get cold when I get up in the middle of the night. And I don’t appreciate being called out of bed at this hour, either!”

  “How long after he came in before there was a telephone call?” asked Mason.

  “It wasn’t very long, if it’s really any of your business.”

  “Do you think he was expecting the telephone call?”

  “How do I know? He woke me up when he came in. I heard him open the door and close it. I was trying to go to sleep again when I heard the telephone ring, and heard him talk. Then I heard him run up to his bedroom. I thought he was going to bed, but I guess he was putting some things in a suitcase, because this morning the suitcase is gone. I heard him run down the stairs and slam the front door.”

  Perry Mason said, “Well, I guess that’s all, then.”

  She said, “You bet it’s all!” and slammed the door.

  Mason got in his car, and stopped at a hotel to call his office.

  When he heard Della Street’s voice on the line, he said, “Is Mr. Mason there?”

  “No, he isn’t,” she said. “Who’s calling?”

  “This is a friend of his,” he told her, “Mr. Fred B. Johnson. I wanted to get in touch with Mr. Mason very badly.”

  “I can’t tell you where he is,” she said rapidly, “but I expect he’ll be in soon. There are several people looking for him, and one of them, a Mr. Paul Drake, I think has an appointment. So I think he’ll be in soon.”

  “Well, that’s all right,” Mason remarked, casually. “I’ll call again.”

  “You haven’t any message to leave with me?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he told her, “except that I’ll call again,” and he hung up.

  He called back the number of Drake’s Detective Bureau and got Paul Drake on the telephone.

  “Don’t make any cracks where anybody can hear you, Paul,” said Mason, “because I have an idea a lot of people would like to ask me some questions that I’d rather not answer right now. You know who this is.”

  “Yeah,” replied Drake, “I got some funny dope for you.”

  “Shoot,” said Mason.

  “I went out to this chap’s house. The one on West Sixty-ninth Street, and I found something funny.”

  “Go on,” Mason told him.

  “This bird got a telephone call from somebody a little after midnight, and told his wife that he was called out of town on important business. He seemed pretty much frightened. He put some things in a suitcase, and, about quarter to one, an automobile drove by for him, and he got in and left. He told his wife that he’d get in touch with her and let her know where he was. This morning she received a telegram saying: ‘All right. Don’t worry. Love.’, and that’s all she knows. Naturally she was a bit worried.”

  “That’s fine,” Mason said.

  “Does it mean anything to you?” asked Drake.

  “I think it does,” said Mason. “I’ve got to think it over a bit. I think it means a whole lot. Have you got anything new on Locke?”

  Drake’s voice showed animation. “I haven’t found out what you want to know yet, Perry. But I think I’m on the tracks of it all right. You remember this jane at the Wheelright Hotel? This Esther Linten?”

  “Yeah,” said Mason. “What about her?”

  “Well,” said Drake, “it’s a funny thing, but she came from Georgia.”

  Mason whistled.

  “That’s not all,” went on Drake. “She’s getting some regular sugar from Locke. There’s a check that goes through every two weeks, and it’s a check that doesn’t come from Locke himself. It comes from a special account that Spicy Bits keeps in a downtown bank. We managed to get the cashier at the hotel to talk. The kid has been cashing the checks through the hotel regularly.”

  “Can you trace her back to Georgia and find out what she’s been mixed up in?” Mason asked. “Maybe she hasn’t changed her name.”

  “That’s what we’re working on now,” Drake said. “I’ve got the Georgia agency working on it. I told them to send me a wire just as soon as they had anything that looked definite, and not to wait until they had run it down, but to keep reporting progress.”

  “That’s fine,” Mason said. “Can you tell me where Frank Locke was last night?”

  “Every minute of the time. We had a shadow on that boy that stuck to him
all evening. Do you want a complete report?”

  “Yes,” said Mason. “Right away.”

  “Where shall I send it?”

  “Make sure that your messenger isn’t followed, and is somebody you can trust. Have him drop in at the Hotel Ripley, and leave it at the desk for Fred B. Johnson of Detroit.”

  “Fine,” said Drake. “Keep in touch with me. I may want to get you.”

  “Okay,” agreed Mason, and hung up.

  He went at once to the Hotel Ripley, and asked at the desk if there was anything for Mr. Johnson. Upon being advised that there was not, he went up to 518 and tried the door. It was unlocked. He walked in.

  Eva Belter sat on the edge of the bed, smoking. There was a highball glass in front of her on the stand by the bed. The whiskey bottle stood beside the glass. It was about a third empty.

  In the overstuffed chair sat a big man with wavering eyes, who looked uncomfortable.

  Eva Belter said, “I’m glad you came. You wouldn’t believe me, so I brought you some proof.”

  “Proof of what?” asked Mason. He was staring at the big man who had risen from the overstuffed chair, and was regarding Mason from embarrassed eyes.

  “Proof of the fact that the will’s a forgery,” she said. “This is Mr. Dagett. He’s the cashier at the bank where George handled all of his business. He knows a good deal about George’s private affairs. He says it’s not his writing.”

  Dagett bowed and smiled. “You’re Mr. Mason,” he said, “the attorney? I’m glad to meet you.”

  He did not offer to shake hands.

  Mason planted his feet wide apart, and looked into the uncomfortable eyes of the big man.

  “Never mind squirming around,” he said. “She’s got some hold on you or you wouldn’t be here at this hour of the morning. Probably you ring up the maid and leave a message about a hat or something. I don’t give a damn about that. What I want now are the straight facts. Never mind what she wants you to say. I’m telling you you’re giving her the most help by being on the square. Is this thing on the level?”

  The banker’s face changed color. He took a half stride toward the lawyer, then stopped, took a deep breath, and said: “You mean about the will?”