Mason got to his feet.
“Now look here,” he said. “I’ve heard enough of this. I went out there because I thought it was good business to go out there. That damned paper tried to hold me up, and I won’t be held up by anybody. Your husband may be ruthless, but I’m pretty ruthless myself. I’ve never asked for quarter yet. And I won’t give any.”
He paused to stare down at her accusingly. “If you’d been frank with me when you came in here this thing wouldn’t have happened. You had to go and lie about the whole business, and that’s the thing that’s responsible for the present mess. It rests on your shoulders, not on mine.”
“Don’t be cross with me, Mr. Mason,” she pleaded. “You’re all I’ve got to depend on now. It’s an awful mess, and you’ve got to see me through.”
He sat down once more and said, “Don’t lie to me then.”
She looked down at her knees, adjusted the hem of her dress over her stocking, and plaited little folds in the garment with the tips of her gloved fingers.
“What shall we do?” she asked.
“One of the first things we’ll do,” he said, “is to begin at the beginning, and come clean.”
“But you know all there is to know.”
“All right then,” said Mason, “tell me what I know, so that I can check up.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Go ahead,” said Mason, “spill it. Tell me the whole business.”
Her voice was thin and helpless. She continued to fold the cloth of the skirt over the top of her crossed legs. She did not look at him as she talked.
“Nobody,” she said, “ever knew George Belter’s connection with Spicy Bits. He kept it so much under cover that nobody ever suspected. Nobody at the office knew, except Frank Locke. And George could control Locke. He’s got something terrible on him. I don’t know just what it is. Maybe it’s a murder.
“Anyway, none of our friends have ever suspected. They all think that George makes his money out of playing the stock market. I married George Belter seven months ago. I am his second wife. I guess I was fascinated by him and his money, but we’ve never got along well together. The last two months our relations have been strained. I was going to sue him for divorce. I think he knew it.”
She paused to stare at Perry Mason, and saw no sympathy in his eyes.
“I was friendly with Harrison Burke,” she went on. “I met him about two months ago. It was just a friendship. Nothing more. We were out together, and that murder took place. Of course, if Harrison Burke had to divulge my name, it would have ruined his career politically, because George would have sued me and named him as correspondent right away. I simply had to hush it up.”
“Maybe your husband would never have found out,” suggested Mason. “The District Attorney is a gentleman. Burke could have disclosed the facts to the District Attorney, and the District Attorney wouldn’t have called you unless you had seen something that made your testimony absolutely necessary.”
“You don’t understand how they work,” she told him. “I don’t know all of it myself. But they’ve got spies everywhere. They buy pieces of information and run down odds and ends of gossip. Whenever a man gets prominent enough to attract attention, they go to a lot of trouble to get all the information they can about him. Harrison Burke is prominent politically, and he’s coming up for re-election. They don’t like him, and Burke knows it. I heard my husband telephoning to Frank Locke, and I knew that they were on the trail of the information. That was why I came to you. I wanted to buy them off before they had any idea of who it was that was with him.”
“If your friendship with Burke was innocent,” said Mason, “why don’t you go to your husband and tell him what the situation is? After all, he’d be dragging his own name through the dust.”
She shook her head, vehemently.
“You don’t know anything at all about it,” she warned. “You simply don’t understand my husband’s character. You showed that in the way you handled him last night. He’s savage and heartless. He’s a fighter. What’s more, he is money-mad. He knows that if I bring suit for divorce, I will probably get some alimony and a lot of money for attorneys’ fees, and suit money. All that he wants is to get something on me. If he could get something on me, and at the same time drag Harrison Burke’s name through the courts, it would be a wonderful break for him.”
Perry Mason frowned thoughtfully. “There’s something funny about that high price they fixed,” he remarked. “It seems to me that it’s too high for political blackmail. Do you suppose that your husband or Frank Locke suspects who it is they’re after?”
“No,” she said firmly.
There was a moment of silence.
“Well,” said Mason, “what do we do? Do we pay their price?”
“There won’t be any price any more. George will call off all negotiations. He’ll go ahead and fight. He figures that he can’t afford to give in to you. If he does, he thinks that you’ll hound him to death. That’s the way he is, and that’s the way he thinks everybody else is. He simply can’t give in to anybody. It isn’t in his nature, that’s all.”
Mason nodded, grimly. “All right, if he wants to fight, I’m perfectly willing to go to the mat with him. One of the first things I’ll do will be to file suit against Spicy Bits the first time they mention my name, and I’ll take the deposition of Frank Locke and force him to disclose who actually owns that paper. Or else I’ll have him prosecuted for perjury. There are a lot of people who would like to see that sheet put where it belongs.”
“Oh, you don’t understand,” she told him, speaking rapidly. “You don’t understand the way they fight. You don’t understand George. It would take a long while for you to get a libel suit to trial. He’ll work fast. And then, you’ve got to remember that I’m your client. I’m the one you’re supposed to protect. Long before any of that happens, I’ll be ruined. They’ll go after that Harrison Burke business hammer and tongs now.”
Mason drummed on his desk again, and then said, “Look here. You’ve hinted at some information your husband has that holds Frank Locke in line. Now I have an idea that you know what that information is. Suppose you give it to me, and I’ll see if I can’t crack a whip over Frank Locke.”
Her face was white as she looked at him.
“Do you know what you’re saying?” she said. “Do you know what you are doing? Do you know what you’re getting into? They’ll kill you! It wouldn’t be the first time. They’ve got affiliations in the underworld with gangsters and gunmen.”
Mason held her eyes with his.
“What,” he insisted, “do you know about Frank Locke?”
She shuddered and dropped her eyes. After an interval, she said, in a tired tone: “Nothing.”
Mason said, impatiently: “Every time you come here you lie to me. You’re one of those baby-faced little liars that always gets by by deceit. Just because you’re beautiful, you’ve managed to get by with it. You’ve deceived every man that ever loved you, every man you ever loved. Now you’re in trouble, and you’re deceiving me.”
She stared at him with blazing indignation, either natural or assumed.
“You’ve no right to talk to me that way!”
“The hell I haven’t,” said Mason, grimly.
They stared at each other for a second or two.
“It was something down South,” she said, meekly.
“What was?”
“The trouble that Locke got into. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know where it was. I only know it was some trouble, and that it was down South somewhere. It was some trouble over a woman. That is, that’s the way it started. I don’t know how it finished. It may have been a murder. I don’t know. I know it’s something, and I know it’s something that George holds over him all the time. That’s the only way George ever deals with anybody. He gets something on them and holds it over them, and makes them do just as he wants.”
Mason stared at her, an
d said, “That’s the way he handles you.”
“That’s the way he tries to.”
“Was that the way he made you marry him?” asked Mason.
“I don’t know,” she said. “No.”
He laughed grimly.
“Well,” she said, “what difference does it make?”
“Maybe not any. Maybe a lot. I want some more money.” She opened her purse.
“I haven’t got much more,” she said. “I can give you three hundred dollars.”
Mason shook his head.
“You’ve got a checking account,” he said. “I’ve got to have more money. I’m going to have some expenses in this thing. I’m fighting for myself now as well as for you.”
“I can’t give you a check. I don’t have any checking account. He won’t let me. That’s another way that he keeps people under his control, through money. I have to get money from him in cash, or get it some other way.”
“What other way?” asked Mason.
She said nothing. She drew out a roll of bills from the purse. “There’s five hundred dollars here, and it’s every cent I’ve got.”
“All right,” said Mason. “Keep twenty-five and give me the rest.”
He pressed a button in the side of the desk. The door to the outer office framed the inquiring features of Della Street.
“Make another receipt,” said Mason, “to this woman. Make it the same way you made the other one, with reference to a ledger page. This is for four hundred and seventy-five dollars, and it’s on account.”
Eva Belter passed the money over to Mason. He took it and gave it to Della Street.
The two women maintained toward each other that air of aloof hostility which characterizes two dogs walking stiff-legged, one around the other.
Della Street held her chin high, as she took the money, and returned to the outer office.
“She’ll give you a receipt,” said Perry Mason, “as you go out. How about getting in touch with you?”
She said, quickly enough: “That’s all right. Ring the house. Ask for my maid and tell her that you’re the cleaner. Tell her you can’t find the dress I inquired about. I’ll explain to her, and she’ll pass the message on to me. Then I’ll call you.”
Mason laughed.
“You’ve got that down pat,” he said. “You must have used it often.”
She looked up at him, and her blue eyes set in a wide stare of tearful innocence.
“I’m sure,” she said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Mason pushed back his swivel chair, got to his feet, and walked around the desk.
“In the future,” he told her, “you can save yourself the trouble of putting on that baby stare with me if you want to. I think we understand each other pretty well. You’re in a jam and I’m trying to get you out.”
She got to her feet slowly, looked into his eyes, and suddenly put her hands on his shoulders.
“Somehow,” she said, “you inspire me with confidence. You’re the only man I ever knew who could stand up to my husband. I feel as though I could cling to you and you’d protect me.”
She tilted back her face so that her lips were close to his, and her eyes were staring into his. Her body was quite close to his.
He took her elbow in his long, strong fingers and turned her away from him.
“I’ll protect you,” he said, “just as long as you pay cash.”
She squirmed around so that she was facing him again.
“Don’t you ever think of anything except money?” she asked.
“Not in this game.”
“You’re all I’ve got to depend on,” she wailed. “Everything in the world. You’re all that stands between me and utter ruin.”
“That,” he said coolly, “is my business. It’s what I’m here for.”
As he talked, he had been walking with her toward the door of the outer office. As he put his right hand on the knob, she twisted around so that she was free of his grip.
“Very well,” she said, “and thank you.”
Her tone was formal, almost frigid. She walked through the office door and into the outer office.
Perry Mason closed the door behind her. He went to his desk, picked up the telephone and when he heard Della Street’s voice, said, “Give me an outside line, Della.”
He gave the number of Drake’s Detective Bureau, asked for Paul Drake, and got him on the line.
“Listen, Paul,” he said, “this is Perry. I’ve got a job for you. You’ve got to handle it quickly. Frank Locke, down at Spicy Bits, is a devil with the women. He’s got a jane over at the Wheelright Hotel that he’s running around with. She lives there. He drops into the barber shop once in a while and gets himself all prettied up before he takes her out on a date. He came from the South some place. I don’t know just where. And he was mixed up in something when he left there. Frank Locke probably isn’t his real name. I want you to put enough men on him to find out what it’s all about, and do it quick. How much is it going to set me back?”
“Two hundred dollars,” said Paul Drake’s voice. “And another two hundred dollars at the end of the week, if I work on it that long.”
“I don’t think I can pass this on to my client,” said Mason.
“Make it three twenty-five in all, then, and use me right if you find you can put it in on the expense account later.”
“Okay,” said Mason. “Get started.”
“Wait a minute. I was just going to call you anyway. I see a big Lincoln is parked down here in front of the building, with a chauffeur sitting at the wheel. I have a hunch that it’s the same car that your mysterious lady friend used for a get-away the other day. Do you want me to chase it down? I took the license number as I came up.”
“No,” said Mason. “That’s okay. I’ve got her tagged. Forget about her and start in on this Locke business.”
“All right,” said Drake, and hung up.
Perry Mason dropped the receiver into place.
Della Street stood in the doorway.
“She gone?” asked Mason.
Della Street nodded.
“That woman’s going to make you trouble,” she said.
“You told me that before,” said Mason.
“All right, I’m telling it to you again.”
“Why?” said Mason.
“I don’t like the way she looks,” said Della Street. “And I don’t like the way she acts toward a working girl. She’s got that snobby complex.”
“Lots of people are like that, Della.”
“I know, but she’s different. She doesn’t know what honesty means. She loves trickery. She’d turn on you in a second if it would be to her advantage.”
Perry Mason’s face was thoughtful.
“It wouldn’t be to her advantage,” he remarked, his voice preoccupied.
Della Street stared at him for a moment, then softly closed the door and left him alone.
Chapter 6
Harrison Burke was a tall man who cultivated an air of distinction. His record in Congress had been mediocre, but he had identified himself as “The Friend of the People” by sponsoring legislation which a clique of politicians pushed through the house, knowing that it would never pass the upper body, or, if it did, that it would be promptly vetoed by the President.
He was planning his campaign for the Senate by adroitly seeking to interest the more substantial class of citizens and impress them with the fact that he was, at heart, conservative. He was trying to do this without in any way sacrificing his following among the common people, or his reputation as being a friend of the people.
He looked at Perry Mason, his eyes shrewd, and appraising, and remarked: “But I don’t understand what you’re driving at.”
“All right,” Mason said, “if I’ve got to hand it to you straight from the shoulder, I’m talking about the night of the Beechwood stick-up, and your presence in the Inn with a married woman.”
Harrison Burke winced as though he had
been struck a blow. He took a deep breath that was a gasp, then deliberately set his face in lines that he doubtless thought were wooden.
“I think,” he said in his deep, booming voice, “that you have been misinformed. And inasmuch as I am exceedingly busy this afternoon, I will have to ask you to excuse me.”
Perry Mason’s expression was a mixture of disgust and resentment. Then he took a step toward the politician’s desk and stared down at the man’s face.
“You’re in a jam,” he said, slowly, “and the quicker you get done pulling that line of hooey, the quicker we can talk about getting out of it.”
“But,” protested Burke, “I don’t know anything about you. You haven’t any credentials, or anything.”
“This is a case,” Mason answered, “where you don’t need any credentials except knowledge. I’ve got the knowledge. I’m representing the woman who was with you on that occasion. Spicy Bits is going to publish the whole thing and demand that you be taken before the Coroner’s Jury and the Grand Jury and made to tell what you know, and who was with you.”
Harrison Burke’s face turned a sickly gray. He leaned forward on his desk as though he wanted support for his arms and shoulders.
“What?” he asked.
“You heard what I said.”
“But,” said Burke, “I never knew. She never told me. That is, this is the first I knew about it. I’m sure there must be some mistake.”
“All right,” said Mason. “Guess again. There isn’t any mistake.”
“How does it happen that I hear of this through you?”
“Because,” said Mason, “the lady probably doesn’t want to go near you. She’s got herself to think about, and she’s trying to work her way out of it. I’m doing the best I can, and it takes money. She’s probably not the kind that would call on you for a campaign contribution. I am.”
“You want money?” asked Burke.
“What the hell did you think I wanted?”
Harrison Burke seemed to be getting the full significance of his predicament in a series of waves which penetrated his consciousness, one at a time.
“My God!” he said. “It would ruin me!”
The Case of the Velvet Claws pm-1 Page 5