The Case of the Velvet Claws   ::   Гарднер Эрл Стенли

But they’re going to publish the fact that he was there, and demand that the police bring him in as a witness. There’s some mystery about the shooting. It looks as though some one had trapped this man into a holdup so that he could be shot, without too many questions being asked. The police and the District Attorney are going to grill every one who was there.”

“And they’re not going to grill you?” asked Perry Mason.

She shook her head. “No, they’re going to leave us out of it. Nobody knows I was there. The officer knows Harrison was there. That’s all. I gave him an assumed name.”

“Well?” asked Mason.

“Don’t you see?” she said. “If they put pressure to bear on the officers, they’ll have to question Harrison. And then he’ll have to tell them who the woman was that was with him. Or else it will appear worse than it really was. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t anything wrong with it. We had a right to be there.”

He drummed with his fingers on his desk for a few moments, and then looked at her steadily.

“All right,” he said, “let’s not have any misunderstanding about this. You’re trying to save Harrison Burke’s political career?”

She looked at him meaningly.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want any misunderstanding about it. I’m trying to save myself.”

He continued to drum with his fingertips for a few minutes, and then said: “It’s going to take money.”

She opened her handbag. “I came prepared for that.”

Perry Mason watched her while she counted out the currency, and arranged it in piles along the edge of the desk.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“That’s on account of your fee,” she said. “When you find out how much it’s going to take to keep the thing secret, you can get in touch with me.”

“How do I get in touch with you?”

“You put a personal in the Examiner: ‘E. G. Negotiations ready to conclude,’ and you sign that with your initials. Then I’ll come to your office.”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “I never like to pay blackmail. I’d rather work some other way around it.”

“What other way would there be?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Sometimes there are other ways.”

She said, hopefully: “I can tell you one thing about Frank Locke. There’s something in his past life that he’s afraid of. I don’t know exactly what it is. I think perhaps he was sent to prison once, or something of that sort.”

He looked at her.

“You seem to know him pretty well.”

She shook her head. “I never saw him in my life.”

“How do you know so much about him?”

“I told you you weren’t to ask me that.”

He drummed again with his powerful fingers on the edge of the desk.

“Can I say that I am representing Harrison Burke?” he asked.

She shook her head emphatically.

“You can’t say that you’re representing anybody. That is, you can’t use any names. You know how to handle that. I don’t.”

“When do you want me to start in?”

“Right away.”

Perry Mason pressed a button on the side of his desk. After a moment or two, the door to the outer office opened and Della Street came in carrying a notebook.

The woman in the chair sat back with a detached, impersonal air; the manner of one whose business is not to be discussed in any way before servants.

“You wanted something?” asked Della Street.

Perry Mason reached in the upper righthand drawer of his desk, and took out a letter.

“This letter,” he said, “is all right, with the exception of one thing that I want in it. I’ll write that in in pen and ink. And then you can retype the letter. I’m going to be out on important business for the rest of the day. And I don’t know just when I’ll be back to the office.”

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.