The Case of the Caretaker's Cat пм-6

by Эрл Стенли Гарднер

Winifred leaned closer to them. "Okay. Now let me tell you something. I don't care. I knew Sam Laxter had sent that fellow in here, and had a pretty good idea he was a lawyer. I knew he was trying to get me to sign away something, and I knew he was doing that because he was afraid I could make trouble.

  "Now, I don't know what you two are in here for, but probably you're trying to line me up so you can start a lawsuit, so let's come out in the open and understand each other. Then you can enjoy eating your waffles a lot more.

  "Grandfather wasn't a fool. He knew what he was doing. He decided to leave his property to the two boys. That's swell. It suits me right down to the ground. We, all three of us, had been living with him for years. We'd grown accustomed to having him pay our bills. We didn't worry about money. We didn't care whether there was a depression, unemployment, or panic. Grandpa had his money, and he had it in cold cash. He dished it out to us generously.

  "What was the result? We were out of touch with the world. We didn't know what was going on and we didn't care. We were young people who might just as well have been retired and living in an institution for the aged and infirm.

  "I had a couple of boy friends who were rushing me to death. I couldn't decide which I liked the better. They were both perfectly swell. Sometimes I thought I liked one; sometimes I thought I liked the other. Then Grandfather died. I was disinherited. I had to get out and get to work. I picked up this business and began to learn about life. I've seen more people, made more contacts, had more fun living and working in this place than I ever had being the pampered pet of a rich granddad. And I'm finished with all of the petty jealousies and intrigue of the two grandsons who were afraid I was going to get all of the property. One of my boy friends decidedly lost interest in me as soon as he found out I wasn't going to have a million dollars or so in my own name. The other one is tickled to death because he wants to support me.

  "Now then, figure that out, and see if you think I'm going to walk into court, drag out a lot of dirt about Grandpa and the other two grandchildren, and either wake up with a headache or with a slice of property that I don't want."

  Perry Mason slid his coffee cup across the counter.

  "Give me another cup of coffee, Winnie, and I'll send all of my friends in here."

  Her flashing eyes stared steadily into the lawyer's for a moment; then, recognizing a kindred spirit, she broke into a light laughter and said, "I'm glad you understand. I was afraid you wouldn't."

  Paul Drake cleared his throat. "Look here, Miss Laxter, it's all right for you to feel that way, but don't forget you may not always feel that way. Money is hard to get. You've been tricked into signing something we could set aside…"

  Winifred handed Perry Mason a full coffee cup, and said to him significantly, "Tell your boy friend what it's all about, will you?"

  Mason interrupted Paul Drake by placing a hand on Paul's arm, digging in with his powerful fingers. "Paul, you don't get the sketch. You're too damned commercial. Why not forget about money and laugh at life? It isn't the future that counts; it's the present. It isn't what you save; it's what you make, and the way you make it."

  Winifred nodded. The detective shrugged his shoulders, and said, "It's your funeral."

  Perry Mason finished his waffle, eating slowly and appreciatively. "You're going to make a success," he said, as he pushed back his empty plate.

  "I've already made a success; I'm finding myself. The bill is eighty cents."

  Mason handed her a dollar bill. "Put the change under the plate, if you will, please," he said, grinning. "How did you and Ashton get along?"

  "Ashton's a great old crab," she laughed, manipulating the cash register.

  Mason remarked with studied carelessness, "Too bad he's going to lose his cat."

  Winifred paused, the change drawer open, her hand held poised over it. "What do you mean, he's going to lose his cat?"

  "Sam won't let him keep the cat."

  "But he has to under the will. He has to keep Ashton employed as a caretaker."

  "But not the cat."

  Dismay showed on Winifred's face. "Do you mean to say he isn't going to let Ashton keep Clinker?"

  "That's it."

  "But he can't put Clinker out."

  "He says he's going to poison him."

  Mason nudged Drake surreptitiously, started toward the door.

  "Wait a minute," she called. "We've got to do something about that. He can't get by with that. Why, that's outrageous!"

  "We'll see what we can do," Mason promised.

  "But look here. You must do something. Perhaps I can do something. Where can I reach you?"

  Perry Mason gave her one of his cards, and said, "I'm Ashton's lawyer. If you think of anything that will help, let me know. And don't sign any more papers."

  The door from the street opened. A young man of medium build smiled at Winifred Laxter, then regarded Perry Mason with a level, appraising stare, shifted his eyes to Paul Drake and suddenly became hostile.

  He was a head shorter than the tall detective, but he pushed up in front of him belligerently, stared at him steadily with gray eyes that didn't so much as flicker. "Say," he demanded, "what's your game?"

  Drake remarked casually, "Just eating waffles, Buddy. Don't quarrel with the cash customers."

  "He's all right, Doug," Winifred said.

  "How do you know he's all right?" the young man resorted, without taking his eyes from Paul Drake. "He hunted me up this afternoon with a stall about going into the contracting business and wanting to have someone who knew architecture work with him. I hadn't talked with him five minutes before I found out he didn't know a single thing about contracting. I think he's a detective."

  Drake, smiling, said, "You're a better detective than I am a contractor. You've guessed right. So what?"

  The young man turned to Winifred. "Shall I throw him out, Winnie?" he asked.

  She laughed. "It's all right, Doug. Shake hands with Perry Mason, a lawyer. You've heard of him. This is Douglas Keene, Mr. Mason."

  The young man's expression changed. "Perry Mason," he said. "Oh…"

  Mason's hand found Keene 's right hand and pumped it up and down. "Glad to know you, Keene," Mason said. "Shake hands with Paul Drake."

  As Mason released his grip of Keene 's hand, Drake grabbed it. "Okay, Buddy," he said, "no hard feelings. It's all in the day's work."

  The steady gray eyes surveyed the two men thoughtfully. The first diffidence gave place to a very evident determination.

  "Let's find out if it's all right," he said. "I've got something to say about this. Winifred and I are engaged. She's going to marry me. If I could support her I'd marry her tomorrow, but I can't support her and I won't let her support me. I'm an architect, and you know it takes a while for a young architect to get started. You just don't begin making money right away. But the country needs architects today more than ever. With credit inflated and more and more young families and more and more babies, it's only a question of time before I'll be sitting pretty."

  Mason surveyed the youthful enthusiasm of the young man's face and nodded.

  Paul Drake said, "Yeah… a couple of years." He said it tonelessly.

  "And don't think I'm waiting for business to pick up, either," Keene said. "I'm working in a service station, and darned glad to get the job. Today the big boss was through. He stopped at the service station without anyone knowing who he was. And when he left he gave me his card and a pat on the back for the way I was handling the trade."

  "Good boy," Mason told him.

  "I'm just telling you fellows this," Keene said, "so you'll know where I stand, because I'm going to find out where you stand."

  Mason glanced over at Winifred Laxter. Her eyes were absorbed in Douglas Keene. Her face was flushed with pride.

  Keene took a step backward, so that he was between both men and the door.

  "Now then," he said, "I've put my cards on the table and you chaps are going to put yours on the table. Peter Laxter d
ied. He didn't leave Winifred a cent. So far as I'm concerned, I'm glad he didn't. She doesn't need his money. She's better off now than she was when she was living with him.

  "I'm going to support her. I don't want any of her grandfather's money and she doesn't need any of her grandfather's money, but I don't like the idea of you birds trying to slip something over on her."

  Mason's hand dropped to the young man's shoulder. "We're not trying to slip anything over on her," he said.

  "What are you hanging around here for, then?"

  "I want to get information," Mason said, "so I can represent a client."

  "Who's the client?"

  Mason grinned. "Believe it or not, but the client's a cat."

  "A what?"

  Winifred interrupted. "It's Charlie Ashton, Doug—you know, the boys have to keep him on as caretaker, but Sam has threatened to poison the cat, and Mr. Mason's representing Ashton, trying to fix things up so he can keep the cat."

  Keene 's jaw set grimly. "Do you mean to say that Sam Laxter threatens to poison Clinker?"

  She nodded.

  "Well, I'll be damned," Keene said slowly. He turned to Perry Mason. "Listen," he said, "I was going to keep out of that, but if Sam's pulling stuff like that, ask him what became of the Koltsdorf diamonds."

  Winifred said sharply, "Doug!"

  He swung to face her. "Don't stop me," he said. "You don't know what I know. I know stuff about Sam that's going to come out. No, don't worry, Winnie, I'm not going to bring it out; I'm going to keep out of it. It's Edith DeVoe. She…"

  Winifred interrupted him firmly. "Mr. Mason is only interested in the cat, Doug."

  Keene laughed, a quick, nervous laugh. "I'm sorry. Guess I got pretty well worked up. I can't stand the idea of anyone poisoning an animal, and when it comes down to brass tacks, Clinker is worth a dozen Sam Laxters. Oh, well, I'll keep out of it."

  Paul Drake casually seated himself on one of the stools.

  "What's going to come out about Sam Laxter?" he asked.

  Mason dropped his hand to the detective's shoulder. "Wait a minute, Paul. These people have shot square with us; let's shoot square with them."

  He turned to Winifred. "Do you want to give us any information?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "I want to keep out of it and I want Doug to keep out of it."

  Mason took Drake's arm and literally pushed him along the passageway between the booths on one side and the stools on the other. "Come on, Paul," he said.

  As the outer door closed behind them Winifred's eyes flashed them a smile. She waved her arm.

  "What did you do that for?" Drake protested. "That fellow knows something. He's been talking with Edith DeVoe."

  "Who's Edith DeVoe?"

  "She's the nurse who lived there in the house. I had a hunch she might know something."

  Mason, staring moodily up and down the street, said, "If I catch Shuster hanging around here, I'm going to punch his face. Can you imagine the damn shyster going in and taking advantage of the kid and getting her to sign a paper like that?"

  Drake said, "It's his style. What can you do now? You haven't got any client who can bust the will. That will's just as good as gold, isn't it?"

  "I've got a cat for a client," Mason said grimly.

  "Can a cat contest a will?"

  Mason's face showed the determination of a born fighter. "Damned if I know," he said. "Come on, we're going to see Edith DeVoe."

  "But you can't contest a will unless you're representing an interested party. Two of the interested parties take under the will and the other one has signed away her rights," the detective protested.

  "I've told you before," Mason said, "that I never hit where the other man's expecting the punch."

  Chapter 5

  In the taxicab, the detective gave Perry Mason a few pertinent bits of information. "There's something off color about your caretaker, Charles Ashton," he said. "He was riding with Peter Laxter, his employer, and they were in an automobile accident. It busted Ashton up pretty badly. He tried to collect damages and couldn't. The driver of the other car wasn't insured and didn't have a dime. Ashton made quite a squawk, trying to get something, said he hadn't saved a dime."

  "That's nothing unusual," Mason remarked. "It's a regular sales talk. He might have had a million dollars salted away and still have said the same thing."

  Drake went on in the mechanical tone of voice of one who is primarily interested in facts rather than in their interpretation. "He had a bank account at one of the banks. As nearly as we can find out, it was the only bank account he ever had. He deposited his salary there. He'd saved something like four hundred dollars. After the accident, he spent it all, and still owes some to a doctor."

  "Wait a minute," Mason interposed, "didn't Peter Laxter take care of his expenses in that automobile accident?"

  "No, but don't jump at conclusions on account of it. Ashton told one of his friends that Laxter would take care of him all right in the long run, but Laxter thought he'd stand a better chance recovering damages if he could show that the money for the doctors and hospital bills had been paid out of his own savings."

  "Go ahead," Mason said. "You're leading up to something. What is it?"

  "Shortly before the house burned, Laxter started cashing in. I can't find how much, but it was plenty. Three days before the house burned down, Ashton rented two largesize safety deposit boxes. The boxes were rented by Charles Ashton and in his name, but he told the clerk in charge that he had a halfbrother who was to be given access to the boxes at any time. The clerk told him his halfbrother would have to come in and register for signature. Ashton said the halfbrother was sick in bed and couldn't move, but couldn't he take out a card and have the halfbrother sign. He said he'd guarantee the signature, indemnify the bank against any claim, and all that sort of stuff. The bank gave him a card for his halfbrother's signature. Ashton went out and came back in an hour or so with the signature on the card."

  "What was the name?"

  "Clammert—Watson Clammert."

  "Who's Clammert?" Mason asked. "Is it a phony?"

  "No," Drake said, "he's probably Ashton's halfbrother. That is, he was; he's dead now. He wasn't registered in the city directory, but I took a chance, inquired at the motor vehicle department and found Clammert had a driving license. I got the address, chased him down and found that Watson Clammert had died within twentyfour hours after affixing his signature to that card."

  "Anything fishy about the death?" Mason asked.

  "Absolutely nothing. He died of natural causes. He died in a hospital. Nurses were in constant attendance, but—and here's the phony part—he'd been in a coma for days prior to his death. He hadn't regained consciousness."

  "Then how the devil," Mason asked, "could he have signed his name on that card?"

  Drake said tonelessly, "I'll bite, how could he?"

  "What else about him?" Mason asked.

  "Apparently he and Ashton are chips off the same block. Ashton went for years without seeing him or speaking to him. It wasn't until Ashton heard that Clammert was dying in the charity ward of a hospital that he came to help him out."

  "How did you get this stuff?" Mason asked.

  "Ashton talked quite a bit to one of the nurses. She got a kick out of him. He was so bitterly vindictive and yet so bighearted. He'd heard Clammert was sick and broke, so he hobbled around, making a canvass of the hospitals until he found Clammert lying unconscious and near death. He dug down in his pocket and did everything he could, hired specialists, got special nurses and haunted the bedside. He left instructions with the nurse to see that Clammert had everything money could buy. Of course, the nurse knew he was dying and the doctors knew it, but, naturally, they kidded Ashton along, telling him there was perhaps one chance in a million, and Ashton told them to take that chance.

  "But just to show you what a cantankerous cuss you've got for a client, he stipulated that when Clammert recovered consciousness, he was never to kno
w who his benefactor had been. Ashton told the nurses they quarreled years ago and hadn't seen each other since—and what do you think they quarreled about?"

  Mason said irritably, "I'll bite, Little Peter Rabbit, what did Ruddy the Lame Fox and Goofy the Sleeping Beauty quarrel about?"

  The detective grinned and said, "A cat."

  "A cat?" Mason exclaimed.

  "That's right—a cat by the name of Clinker—it was just a kitten then."

  "Oh, hell," Mason said disgustedly.

  "As near as I can figure out," Drake went on, "from the time Ashton discovered his halfbrother until Clammert died a couple of days later, Ashton had spent something like five hundred dollars in hospital and doctors' bills. He paid everything out in cash. The nurse said he had a big sheaf of bills he carried in his wallet. Now, then, where the hell did Charles Ashton get that money?"

  Mason made a grimace. "Shucks, Paul, I didn't want you to dig up facts that would put my client in a spot; I wanted you to dig up something that would put Sam Laxter in a spot."

  "Well," Drake remarked in his dry, expressionless voice, "they're some of the pieces in the puzzle picture. I'm hired to get the pieces; you're hired to put them together. If they're going to make the wrong kind of picture when they're put together, you can always lose some of the pieces so no one else can find them."

  Mason chuckled, then said thoughtfully, "Why the devil did Ashton want it so Clammert could go to that safety deposit box?"

  "Well, the only thing I could think of," Drake said, "was that if Clammert got well Ashton intended to give him money but didn't intend to have any personal contact, so he arranged to give Clammert a key to a safety deposit box into which he'd put money from time to time and Clammert could take it out."

  "That doesn't make sense," Mason said, "because Clammert would have to sign his name to get access to the box and the signature that Ashton turned in as being that of Clammert couldn't have been made by Clammert because Clammert was unconscious."

  "Okay," Drake said, "you win. That's what I meant when I said the facts were the pieces in the puzzle. I get them and you put them together."