The Case of the Counterfeit Eye пм-7

by Эрл Стенли Гарднер

  "We've got Brunold's address?" he asked.

  "Yes. It's in the file."

  "Was there a telephone number?"

  "I think so. I'll see."

  She opened a file of card indexes and pulled out a card.

  "Telephone?" he asked.

  "Yes. It's here."

  "Get him."

  She looked at her wristwatch, but Mason said impatiently, "Never mind the time. Go ahead and get him."

  She plugged in a line, dialed a number, waited for almost a minute, then said, "Hello, is this Mr. Brunold?"

  She glanced across the desk at the lawyer, and nodded.

  "Tell him to come up here," Mason said. "No, wait a minute; I'd better tell him myself."

  He took the telephone from her and said, "This is Perry Mason talking. I want you to come up to my office right away."

  Brunold's voice was sulky.

  "Listen," he said. "You haven't any business that's important enough to make me…"

  "You paid me fifteen hundred dollars," the lawyer said, "because you had confidence in my ability to get you out of a mess. That was before you got in the mess. You're in it now. My best judgment is that you should come up here. If you don't follow my advice, you've made a poor guess and thrown away fifteen hundred dollars backing it. I'll be in my office for ten minutes. If you don't stop to shave, you can make it."

  Perry Mason dropped the receiver back on the hook without waiting for Brunold to make any further comments.

  Della Street looked at him, speculatively, and said, "Is he in a mess?"

  "I'll say he is. Hartley Basset was murdered tonight. He was holding a bloodshot glass eye clutched in his hand when they found the body."

  "But, does Brunold know Basset?"

  "That's what I want to find out."

  "He should be in the clear," she said slowly. "He complained of the loss of the eye this morning."

  Mason stared at the six bloodshot eyes which glowered so redly up at him, and nodded his head slowly.

  "It's a point," he said, "to take into consideration. But don't overlook this fact: Harry McLane worked for Basset. Brunold was acquainted with Harry McLane. Where did Brunold and Harry McLane get acquainted? Did the McLanes come here by accident, or did Brunold send them?"

  "Whom are we representing?" she inquired.

  "Brunold, for one," he said, "Miss McLane, for another, perhaps Mrs. Basset."

  "How was the murder committed?" she asked.

  "So it might have looked like a suicide, but it was pretty clumsy. Then Mrs. Basset complicated things by planting a gun. A quilt and a blanket had been used to muffle the sound of the shot. One gun was under them. Mrs. Basset—planted a second gun. She, said it was because she didn't see the first gun, and she wanted the thing to look like a suicide."

  "Well?" Della Street asked.

  "Well," Mason said, "that may have been it, or it may have been that she knew the concealed gun hadn't been the one that did the shooting, and she realized the police would check it up by comparing bullets."

  "Did she leave fingerprints on the second gun?" Della Street asked.

  "Yes," Mason said, "hers and mine."

  "Yours!"

  "Yes."

  "How did yours get on it?"

  "I took the gun away from Dick Basset, her son."

  "And then gave it to her?"

  "Yes."

  "Gee, Chief, do you suppose that was a play to get your fingerprints on the gun?"

  "I can't tell, yet."

  She pursed her lips and whistled silently. After a moment she said, "Can you tell me all about it?"

  "I got a call about midnight to rush out to Basset's place. Mrs. Basset told me her son, Dick, was threatening to kill her husband. I stalled around for a while, but she made it sound urgent, so I went.

  "When I got there, this Fenwick woman was lying on the couch, apparently unconscious. Mrs. Basset said Hartley Basset had hit her. Dick Basset had a gun. I took the gun. They said the woman was Dick's wife, but the marriage mustn't be mentioned. A redheaded woman about fifty, probably a servant, was putting wet towels on the girl's head. Dick Basset was talking big.

  "I figured Mrs. Basset wanted a divorce; that her husband would deny hitting the girl, in a divorce court, but he might have a hard time withstanding the rough treatment of two detectives who wanted the facts, so I put in a call for the cops.

  "Then the girl came to, and said Basset hadn't hit her but that a masked man, with an empty eyesocket, had slugged her. She'd pulled off the mask and seen the man's face, but because the room was half dark, and light was coming through the doorway, he hadn't seen hers. She said he was a stranger to her. He socked her. The mask was a piece of black carbon paper with two holes in it for eyes. It had evidently been held in place by putting a hat brim down over it. The Fenwick girl ripped the mask off. The pieces that had been torn out were in Basset's private office on the desk.

  "Mrs. Basset claims she saw a man running out of the door and driving away in the Basset car. She claims it was her husband, Hartley Basset.

  "Naturally, after the Fenwick girl tells her story, I explore the other room. We find Hartley Basset lying dead, like I've told you. I find a chap by the name of Colemar, a weakkneed, mouselike chap, who does Basset's bookkeeping, typing and secretarial work, had been in the place and Mrs. Basset had kicked him out. I thought he might be sore, so I went up to talk with him."

  "Did you see him?"

  "Yes."

  "Was he sore?"

  "Plenty. Not so much because she kicked him out as because Basset and his wife didn't get along. He worked for Basset. Therefore, he sided with the boss. All he knew was Basset's side of it, and that's all he wanted to know.

  "But when I got in his room I found this piece of paper on his dresser. It's the paper I gave Bertha McLane, with my telephone number on it."

  Mason took the paper from his pocket, slowly unfolded it, and dropped it on his desk.

  "He said he'd found it in the corridor in front of Mrs. Basset's bedroom."

  "Then, Harry McLane must have been out there," Della Street said excitedly.

  "Either Harry or Bertha," he said. "Don't forget that it was Bertha to whom I gave it. She may have given it to her brother, or someone may have given it to Mrs. Basset, or Colemar may have been lying, or everyone may have been lying. It's one of those cases."

  "The blanket and quilt story sounds phoney," the girl told him.

  "Hell," Mason said, impatiently, "it all sounds phoney. I picked this Fenwick girl for a key witness. I knew the cops would sew her up so I'd never see her, once they got their hands on her, so I decided to beat them to it. I figured you'd get a complete interview before the cops had a chance to coach her."

  "That eye business," she said, "makes it seem like Brunold."

  "It does if the girl is telling the truth," Mason said. "But if she was on the square, why didn't she come here? And the mask business sounds fishy as hell."

  "Why?" she asked. "Wouldn't the murderer mask himself?"

  "How could a murderer," Mason countered, "enter Basset's office, wearing a mask and holding a gun under a quilt and a blanket? How could he approach Basset, stick the quilt and blanket against Basset's head to muffle the explosion, and pull the trigger, all without Basset putting up a fight?"

  "He might have tiptoed," Della Street said.

  Mason shook his head moodily.

  "Then he wouldn't have needed the mask. Mind you, the gun must have been concealed under the quilt and blanket. From the position of the body, it's almost certain that Basset was taken by surprise and never knew what happened, but was facing the man who fired the shot."

  Della Street said slowly, "But there were lots of people in that house who could have entered Basset's office and approached him, carrying a quilt and a blanket, without exciting Basset's suspicion."

  "Now," Mason said, "you're getting somewhere. Let's start naming those people."

  "Mrs. Basset, for one," she s
aid.

  "Right," he told her.

  "Dick Basset, for another."

  "Check."

  "And," she said, "perhaps the girl who was lying on the couch."

  Mason nodded his head. "Anyone else?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Yes," the lawyer said, "there were the servants. Remember that a servant was bending over the girl on the couch. A servant could very logically carry a quilt and blanket on her arm. She might be making up a bed, stopping, perhaps, to ask Basset a question…" Mason paused for a moment's meditation, then said suddenly, "But you're overlooking the significant point in what you've been telling me."

  "What is it?"

  "Those persons only," he said, "could have entered Basset's office carrying the quilt and the blanket without bringing Basset to his feet, because Basset was familiar with their faces. But the person who ran from that room had his face covered with a mask. That brings us to a consideration of the mask. It had been prepared in a hurry. The carbon paper was probably right on Basset's desk. The man picked it up…"

  "After the murder!" Della Street exclaimed triumphantly.

  "Now you're getting it," he told her. "The mask must have been an afterthought. But the quilt and blanket to muffle the gun weren't. They show premeditated deliberation. The mask shows haste."

  "Why should a murderer mask himself after he'd committed a crime?" she asked.

  "To get away, of course. The Fenwick girl saw a man sitting in Basset's office. His back was toward her. Basset told her to wait. She was sitting in the reception room, waiting. The man who was with Basset knew that."

  "Then he put on the mask only to enable him to escape," she said.

  "Looks that way. But why didn't he go out by the back way? Then he wouldn't have needed a mask. But if the man who prepared that mask in the first place was the man who wore it out of the room, why did he tear out an eye hole for his blind eye? Why didn't he tear out just the one eye hole?"

  She shook her head and said, "That's getting too deep for me. How do you know Basset didn't put up a fight?"

  "From the way the body fell, for one thing," he said, "and because he had a gun suspended from a spring shoulder holster under his left armpit. He hadn't gone for that gun."

  "Then that makes three guns that were in the room," she said.

  "Three guns," he told her, moodily.

  "And you don't know yet which one actually did the killing?"

  "Ten to one," he told her, "it's the gun that has my fingerprints on it… How long ago did Paul Drake leave?"

  "He gave me the eyes after I'd been in the office about ten minutes. It couldn't have been over fifteen minutes ago."

  "He'll be down at the Red Lion," Mason said, "having a drink with some of the newspaper chaps. See if you can get him on the telephone."

  "Going to report your car as stolen?" she asked.

  He shook his head.

  "It'll turn up somewhere."

  Della Street, who had been whirring the dial of the telephone, said, in her sweetest voice, "A client wishes to speak with Paul Drake. Is he there?"

  A moment later she said, "Hello, Paul. Just a minute, the Chief wants to speak with you."

  Mason took the telephone.

  "Paul," he said, "take a pencil and make a note of this. Hartley Basset—Basset Auto Loan Company—a financier, money lender, and, perhaps, a fence. I want to get every bit of dope on him that you can pick up.

  "He committed suicide tonight, and he left a suicide note in his typewriter. The newspaper boys will have photographs. I want prints of those photographs. I want the lowdown on Mrs. Basset and her son—a fellow by the name of Dick Basset. Hartley Basset, by the way, isn't the boy's father. I want to find out why the kid didn't keep his father's name. Now, here's another one. Peter Brunold, 3902 Washington Street. In case you don't know it, he's the man who matches up with the six eyes you got. I want all the dope on him. I want the fastest work I can get. I don't care how many men you put on the job. But get them started. Burn up the wires."

  Paul Drake's voice, sounding over the telephone as though he were about to chuckle, said, "I like the casual way you mention the fact that it's suicide, Perry. I'm betting five to one it's murder, and I don't even know the facts."

  "Shut up," Mason told him, grinning, "and turn that searchlight mind of yours on something that's going to bring shekels into the cash register."

  He dropped the receiver back into place just as the knob of the door turned. Pete Brunold pushed his way through the door. He was puffing, and his forehead was beaded with perspiration. He glanced at his wristwatch and nodded with satisfaction.

  "Made a record run of it, even if the taxi driver did…"

  He broke off as he stared at the assortment of eyes on the desk.

  "What are those?" he asked.

  "Take a look at them," Mason told him.

  Brunold examined the eyes carefully.

  "Pretty good," he said. "They're darn good."

  "Found the original eye yet?" Mason asked casually, as though he were making preliminary conversation.

  Brunold shook his head and stared at Della Street.

  Della Street pulled the fur coat about her legs. "How'd you like to get your eye back?" Mason inquired.

  "I'd like it."

  Della Street replaced the glass eyes in the box, surreptitiously slid a notebook into position on her knee, crossed her legs, and started taking notes.

  "I think I can get your eye for you," Mason said. "Or, I can tell you how you can get it."

  "How?"

  "All you have to do," Perry Mason said, "is to take a taxicab, go to Hartley Basset's house at 9682 Franklin Street. You'll find some police there. Tell them that you think your eye is in the place and you want to identify it. They'll take you into a room. Hartley Basset will be lying on the floor with a bullet hole in his head. Something is clasped in his right hand. They'll pry the fingers apart. You'll see a bloodshot eye staring up at you from…"

  Brunold recoiled momentarily, then recovered possession of himself, and picked up a cigarette from the humidor on the desk. The hand which conveyed the match to the cigarette was shaking.

  "What makes you think it's my eye?"

  "It looks like it."

  Brunold said slowly, "That's what I was afraid of. Someone stole that eye and left a counterfeit. I wanted to get the original. I was afraid it would show up in some situation that would be like this. This is ghastly. This is simply awful!"

  "Surprised?" Mason inquired.

  "Of course I'm surprised… Look here, you don't think that I went out there and killed the guy and then stuck my eye in his hand? I couldn't have done it if I'd wanted to. I didn't have the eye. I told you this morning someone had stolen it and left a counterfeit in its place."

  "Did you know Hartley Basset?" Mason inquired.

  Brunold hesitated, then said, "No, I didn't know him. I'd never met him."

  "Know his wife?"

  "I've met her—that is… Yes, I know her."

  "Know the boy?"

  "Dick—er—Basset?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, yes, I'd seen Dick, met him, you know."

  "You knew Harry McLane, who had been working for Basset."

  "Yes."

  "Where'd you meet him—out at Basset's place?"

  "Out there. He was acting as assistant secretary and stenographer. I met him—once."

  "Didn't he ever introduce you to Basset?"

  "No."

  "Did you ever see Hartley Basset?"

  "No… I never saw him. I knew of him, of course."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  Brunold fidgeted uncomfortably.

  "Look here," he said. "You're not doing this to sweat me, are you? This isn't a third degree stunt? You wouldn't kid me about Basset being dead?"

  Perry Mason tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail.

  "Certainly not."

  "Well," Brunold said, "I may as well tell you the truth.
I knew his wife, quite well—that is, I'd seen her several times."

  "How long had you known her?"

  "Not very long."

  "Was the friendship platonic, or otherwise?"

  "Platonic."

  "When was the last time you saw her?"

  "About two weeks ago, I think."

  "If she thought you were drifting away from her," Mason said bluntly, "would she be above building up a case against you?"

  Brunold nearly dropped his cigarette. "Good God," he said, "what do you mean?"

  "I mean just what I said, Brunold. Suppose that you'd had a fight with Mrs. Basset. Suppose her husband committed suicide. Suppose she thought you were in love with some other woman and thought you were going to leave her. Would it be at all probable that she'd try to make it seem that her husband hadn't committed suicide, but had been murdered, and that you were implicated in the murder?"

  "Why?"

  "So as to keep you from going with some other woman."

  "But there isn't any other woman."

  "Did she know that?"

  "Yes… That is, no… You understand, there isn't anything between us… She's nothing to me."

  "I see," the lawyer said dryly. "When did you first meet Mrs. Basset?"

  "About a year ago, I guess."

  "And you last saw her about two weeks ago?"

  "Yes."

  "And you haven't seen her since?"

  "No."

  "When did you first find out your eye had been stolen?"

  "Late last night."

  "You don't think you left it some place?"

  "Certainly not. A counterfeit was substituted. That means someone must have stolen the eye deliberately."

  "Why did they steal it?"

  "I don't know."

  "Why do you think they stole it?"

  "I can't tell you that."

  "You met Harry McLane out at the Basset residence?"

  "I saw him there, yes."

  "Know anything about his being short in his accounts?"

  Brunold hesitated perceptibly, then said, "Yes. I heard he was."

  "Do you know what the exact amount was?"

  "Something around four thousand dollars."

  "Did you know a young woman by the name of Hazel Fenwick?"

  "Fenwick?"

  "Yes."