The Case of the Howling Dog, page 11
“Yes,” she said, “I guess I understand what you want, all right, but I’m so glad to see you. I wanted …”
“Shut up,” he told her, “and listen.”
She nodded.
“Cartright,” said Perry Mason, “came to my office. He acted strangely. He wanted to make a will. We won’t talk about the terms of that will—not yet. But with the will came a letter and a retainer. The letter instructed me to protect the interests of the wife of the man who was living at 4889 Milpas Drive, under the name of Clinton Foley. Now get that, and get it straight. He didn’t tell me to protect the woman who was going under the name of Mrs. Foley at 4889 Milpas Drive, but he told me to protect the lawfully wedded wife of the man who was going under the name of Clinton Foley, at that place.”
“But did he understand just what he was doing? He wouldn’t—”
“Shut up,” Mason said. “Time’s precious. I’ve got a witness to listen to what I say to you. I know what that’s going to be. But I may not want a witness to what you say to me, because I don’t know what you’re going to say. Understand? I’m a lawyer, trying to protect you.
“Now Arthur Cartright mailed me a substantial retainer, with instructions to protect you and see that your legal rights were safeguarded. I’ve got the fee, and I propose to earn it. If you don’t want my services, all you’ve got to do is to say so, and I walk out right now.”
“No, no,” she said, in a shrill, high-pitched voice. “I want your services. I need them. I want …”
“All right,” Perry Mason said. “Now, then, can you do what I tell you to?”
“If it isn’t too complicated,” she said.
“It’s going to be hard,” he said, “but it isn’t going to be complicated.”
“Very well,” she said. “What is it?”
“If anybody,” he told her, “questions you about where you were at any time tonight, or what you were doing, tell them that you can’t answer any questions unless your attorney is present, and that I’m your lawyer. Now, can you remember that?”
“Yes. That won’t be hard to do, will it?”
“It may be,” he told her, “and if they ask you how I became your lawyer, or when you hired me, or anything of that sort, simply make the same answer. And make the same answer to all questions. If they ask you what the weather is. If they ask you how old you are. If they ask you what kind of face cream you use, or anything else, make the same answer. Do you understand that?”
She nodded.
Perry Mason abruptly walked to the fireplace.
“What’s been burning here?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said.
Perry Mason leaned over the fireplace and stirred the ashes in the grate.
“Smells like some kind of cloth,” he said.
The woman said nothing, but stared at him in white-faced silence.
Perry Mason picked up a small piece of cloth. It was silk, green, and printed with a brown triangle.
“Looks like part of a scarf,” he said.
She took a swift step toward him.
“I didn’t know …”
“Shut up!” he said, whirling on her.
He took the singed bit of cloth, put it in his vest pocket, then pulled the grate out of the fireplace, and started poking through the ashes. After a moment, he straightened, walked to the dressing table, picked up a bottle of perfume, smelled it, walked swiftly to the wash stand, pulled the cork, and dumped the perfume down the wash stand.
The woman gasped, moved toward him, and put a restraining hand on his arm.
“Stop!” she said. “That stuff costs …”
He whirled on her with eyes that were blazing.
“It’s likely to cost a hell of a lot,” he said. “Now listen to this and get it straight: Check out of this hotel. Go to the Broadway Hotel on Forty-Second Street. Register under the name of Bessie Forbes. Be careful what you take with you, and be careful what you leave behind. Buy yourself some good cheap perfume, and when I say cheap, I mean cheap. Souse it all over everything you’ve got. Do you get me?”
She nodded.
“Then what?” she asked.
“Then,” he said, “sit tight and don’t answer any questions. No matter who asks you a question or what it’s about, say you won’t do anything until your lawyer is present.”
He turned on the hot water tap, washed out the perfume bottle, kept the hot water running.
The room gave forth a fragrance of perfume, and Perry Mason turned to Paul Drake.
“Better smoke, Paul,” he said. “A cigar if you’ve got one.”
Paul Drake nodded, pulled a cigar from his pocket, clipped off the end and struck a match to it. Perry Mason walked across to the windows, raised the windows, and nodded to the woman.
“Get some clothes on,” he said. “My telephone number is Broadway 39251. Make a note of it. Call me if anything happens. Remember that my services aren’t going to cost you a cent. They’re all paid for. Remember that you’re going to answer all questions asked of you, no matter what they may be, with just that one answer, that you can’t talk unless your lawyer tells you to.
“Have you got that straight?”
She nodded.
“Have you got guts enough,” he asked, “to stand on your two feet, look the world squarely in the eyes, and tell them you won’t answer a single question unless your lawyer is there?”
She lowered her eyes and looked thoughtful.
“Suppose,” she said, “that they tell me that would work against me? That is, isn’t it supposed to be an admission of guilt for a person to make a statement like that? Not that I’m guilty of anything, but you seem to think that …”
“Please,” he said, “don’t argue with me. Have enough confidence in me to do as I tell you. Will you do that?”
She nodded.
“All right,” he told her. “That’s all, Drake. Come on.” He turned, pulled open the door of the room, paused on the threshold to give her a parting instruction.
“When you check out of here,” he said, “don’t leave a back trail. Go to the depot and buy a ticket some place. Then switch redcap porters, pick up another taxicab and go to the place I told you and register under the name I told you. You got that straight?”
She nodded.
“All right,” said Mason. “Come on, Paul.”
The door banged behind them.
In the corridor Paul Drake looked at Perry Mason.
“You,” he said, “may think that you’re keeping on one side of the line, but it looks to me as though you’ve gone over.”
“Think I’ve broken through the thin ice, Paul?” asked Perry Mason.
“Hell,” said Paul Drake explosively, “you’re in ice water up to your chin right now, and it’s getting deeper.”
“Stick around,” Perry Mason told him, “you haven’t seen anything yet. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to get me an actress, about twenty-eight years old, about the same build as that woman, and have her at my office just as quick as you can get her there. She’s going to make three hundred dollars for doing something, and I’m going to guarantee that it’s going to be within the law. I don’t want you to be there personally, and don’t want you to know anything about it. I simply want you to get the actress and send her to me. I want you to get a girl who will do anything. You understand? Anything.”
“How much time have I?” asked Paul Drake.
“You’ve got less than ten minutes, if you can do it in that time. I know you can’t, but you’ve got to do it just as fast as you can. You’ve got a list of people that you can call on to do various jobs, and what you’ve got to do is to check over it, get the right person, and get in touch with her.”
“I’ve got a girl,” said Paul Drake slowly, “who might answer the description. She worked as a lure on the vice squad for a while, and knows her way around. She’d do anything.”
“Is she light or dark?”
Paul Drake smiled slowly.
“She,” he said, “is about the same build and complexion as Mrs. Bessie Forbes. That’s the reason I thought of her.”
“All right,” Mason said, “don’t get too damn smart, or it might not be so good. This is a case where you’re going to be dumb. The dumber the better. Remember, I’m the one that’s giving orders. You’re just following them, and you don’t know anything yet.”
“I’m commencing to suspect a lot,” Paul Drake said.
“Suspect all you want to, but don’t tell me anything about it, and keep your thoughts to yourself, because you’re going to want to forget them later on.”
“Okay,” said Drake, “You go on up to your office, and I’ll get this girl to show up. Her name’s Mae Sibley. You don’t need to mince words with her.”
“Okay,” said Mason, “get started—and thanks, Paul.”
CHAPTER 13
Mae Sibley was well-built and attractive. Perry Mason stood close to her, looked her over with approval.
“Give me that bottle of perfume, Della,” he said.
He took the bottle of perfume, wafted it beneath the young woman’s nostrils.
“Any objection to using this?” he asked.
“I’ll say not, I could use all of that you wanted to give me.”
“All right, put on lots of it.”
“Where?”
“On your clothes—anywhere.”
“I hate to waste that good perfume.”
“That’s all right, go ahead and put it on.”
Della Street smiled at the young woman, and said, “Perhaps I can help.”
She applied perfume liberally to the girl’s clothes.
“Now,” said Perry Mason, “you’re going to go to a certain taxicab and tell the driver that you left a handkerchief in the taxicab. When you had him take you out to 4889 Milpas Drive. Do you suppose you can remember that?”
“Sure. What else do I do—anything?”
“That’s all, just take the handkerchief and give the cab driver a sweet smile.”
“Then what?”
“He’ll give you the handkerchief and ask you for your address. Because, he’ll tell you, you’ve got to let him know where you live so he can report to the Lost and Found Department.”
“Very well, then what do I do?”
“Then you give him a phoney name and address, and fade from the picture.”
“That’s all there is to it?”
“That’s all there is to it.”
“What name and address do I give him?”
“Give him the name of Agnes Brownlie, and tell him that you live at the Breedmont Hotel, on Ninth and Masonic Streets. Don’t give him any room number.”
“What do I do with the handkerchief?”
“After you’ve got the handkerchief, you bring it to me.”
“This is on the up and up?” she asked.
“It’s within the law,” he told her, “if that’s what you want to know.”
“And I get three hundred dollars for doing it?”
“Three hundred dollars when the job is finished.”
“When’s the job going to be finished?”
“There may not be anything more to it,” he told her, “but you’ve got to keep in touch with me so that I can reach you at any time. Give me your telephone number and arrange so that I can reach you on short notice any time I want to.”
“And how do I find the taxicab driver?”
“In exactly fifteen minutes,” Perry Mason told her, “the taxicab driver will come up to the corner of Ninth and Masonic Streets, and telephone in to his office to find out if there are any calls for him. The particular taxi that you want is a Checker cab, number 86-C. You telephone in to the head office of the taxicab company, tell them that you left an article in the cab, and ask them to let you know where the cabbie is as soon as he reports. Leave them a number so they can call you back. They’ll call you back in fifteen minutes, when he reports, and tell you that he’s at Ninth and Masonic. You tell them that you’re right near there, so you’ll go and pick him up. Pretend that you recognize him. You can spot him from the number on the cab. Be a little friendly with him.”
“Okay,” she said, “anything else?”
“Yes,” he told her, “you’ve got to talk in a peculiar tone of voice.”
“What sort of tone of voice?”
“High and fast.”
“Like this?” she asked, raising her voice, and saying rapidly: “I beg your pardon, but I think I left my handkerchief in your taxicab.”
“No,” he said, “that’s too high and not fast enough. Try it a little lower, and you’ve got to drag out the ends of the words a little bit more. You’re clipping them off too much. Put kind of a little emphasis on the word ends.”
Mae Sibley watched him closely, her head cocked slightly on one side, in the attitude of a bird listening. She closed her eyes.
“Like this?” she asked: “I beg your pardon, but didn’t I leave my handkerchief in your taxicab?”
“That’s a little more like it,” he said, “but you’ve got to do it more like this. Now listen: ‘I beg your pardon, but didn’t I leave my handkerchief in your taxicab?’ ”
“I think I get you,” she said. “It’s a trick of talking rapidly until you come to the last word in each phrase, and then you drawl out the end of it.”
“Maybe that’s it,” he said. “Go ahead and try it. Let’s see how it works.”
She flashed him a sudden smile. “I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I think I left my handkerchief in your taxicab.”
“That’s it,” he told her. “It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. Now get started. You haven’t got much time. Della, you’ve got a black fur coat hanging in the closet. Give it to her. Okay, go ahead. Put on your coat, sister, and then grab a taxi and beat it out to the Breedmont Hotel. You can call the cab office from there. They’ll have the cab reporting in about ten minutes now. You’ve just about got time to put through your calls and make it, and make it snappy.”
He ushered her to the door, turned to Della Street, and said, “Get Paul Drake on the line, and tell him to come up here right away.”
She nodded, and her fingers worked the dial of the telephone.
Perry Mason started pacing back and forth across the office, his face immobile, his stare fixed.
“He’ll be right up,” she said. “What is it, chief, can you tell me?”
Perry Mason shook his head.
“Not yet, I can’t, Della. I’m not certain, myself, just what it is.”
“But what’s happened?”
“Plenty,” he told her, “and the trouble is it doesn’t fit together.”
“What’s bothering you?” she asked.
“I am wondering,” he said, “why that dog howled, and why he quit howling. Sometimes I think I know why the dog howled, and then I can’t figure why he quit howling. Sometimes I figure that it’s all goofy.”
“You can’t expect things to dovetail together too accurately,” she told him, her eyes dark with concern. “You’ve just come out of one big case, and now you’re plunging right in on another.”
“I know it,” he told her. “It’s something of a strain, but I can stand it all right. That isn’t what’s bothering me. What’s bothering me is why the facts don’t fit together. Don’t ever fool yourself that facts don’t fit, if you get the right explanation. They’re just like jigsaw puzzles—when you get them right, they’re all going to fit together.”
“What doesn’t fit in this case?” she asked.
“Nothing fits,” he said, then glanced up as there was a knock at the outer door.
“Paul Drake, I guess,” he said.
He strode to the door, opened it, and nodded to the tall detective.
“Come in, Paul,” he said. “I want you to get the dope on the man that Thelma Benton went out with; the man who drove the Chevrolet coupé, 6M9245.”
Paul Drake’s smile was slow and good-natured.
“Don’t think you’re the only one that can put any pep into your work,” he said. “I’ve had my men working on that, and already have the answer for you. The fellow is Carl Trask. He’s a young man who’s drifted around and had a police record. Right at present he’s engaged in doing some small-time gambling.”
“Can you find out anything more than that about him?”
“In time, yes. We’re getting stuff. In fact, we’re getting stuff coming in from all over the country. We’ve got a lot more reports on the situation in Santa Barbara. I’ve checked down everybody who was in the household—even including the Chinese cook.”
“That’s right,” Perry Mason said. “I’m interested in that cook. What happened to him?”
“They made some kind of a deal with him, by which he agreed to be deported. I don’t know just what it was. I think that Clinton Foley got in touch with the Federal authorities to find out what it was all about; found there was no question but what the boy was in this country illegally. So Foley worked out a deal by which the Chink was to be deported at once, without being held for further examination or trial, and gave him enough money to set himself up in some sort of business in Canton. Our money buys a lot of Chinese money, at the present rate of exchange, and money means a lot more in China.”
“Find out anything else about him?” asked Perry Mason. “That is, the cook?”
“I found out that there’s something funny about the tip-off that caused the Federal authorities to go out there and round him up.”
“What sort of a tip-off was it?”
“I don’t know exactly, but, from all I can gather, some man telephoned and said that he understood Ah Wong was in the country without a proper certificate; that he didn’t want to disclose his identity or have his name used in any way, but he wanted something done about it.”
“Chinese or white man?” asked Perry Mason.
“Apparently a white man, and apparently rather well educated. He talked like an educated man.”
“Well,” said Mason, “go on.”
“That’s all there is, definite,” said the detective, “but one of the clerks in the immigration office handled that anonymous tip, and also talked with Foley over the telephone. She’s got a goofy idea that it was Foley who gave the tip-off.”
