The Case of the Velvet Claws   ::   Гарднер Эрл Стенли

“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 wellkept little minxes that would doublecross 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 Perry 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 onceover 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 wellkept, too wellgroomed, 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.