The Case of the Velvet Claws pm-1

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  She got slowly to her feet.

  “You’ve got to have some proof of this,” she said, but her tone was thin and trembling.

  Mason nodded his head to Drake.

  “Go in the next room, Drake,” he said. “You’ll find Mrs. Veitch in there. Bring her out and let her corroborate what I’ve said.”

  Drake’s face was like a mask. He got up and walked to the connecting door which led to the adjoining room. He opened it.

  “Mrs. Veitch,” he called.

  There was a rustle of motion.

  Mrs. Veitch, tall, bony, dressed in black, walked into the room with her lack-luster eyes staring straight ahead.

  “Good morning,” she said to Eva Belter.

  Perry Mason suddenly said, “Just one moment, Mrs. Veitch. There’s one other matter I want to clear up before I have you make your statement to Mrs. Belter. If you’ll just step back in the other room for a moment, please.”

  Mrs. Veitch turned and walked back to the room.

  Paul Drake flashed Perry Mason a quizzical glance, and shut the door.

  Eva Belter took two steps toward the outer door, then suddenly toppled forward.

  Perry Mason caught her as she pitched forward.

  Drake came up and took her legs. Together, they carried her to the bed, and laid her down.

  Della Street laid down her pencil, gave a little exclamation, and pushed back her chair.

  Mason turned on her almost savagely.

  “Stay there!” he said. “Take down everything that’s said! Don’t miss a word!”

  He went to the washstand, sopped a towel in cold water, and slapped it down on Eva Belter’s face. They loosened the front of her dress, and slapped her chest with the towel.

  She gasped and recovered consciousness.

  She looked up at Mason, and said, “Please, Perry, help me.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t help you,” he said, “as long as you’re trying to give me the double-cross.”

  “I’ll come clean,” she wailed.

  “All right. What happened?”

  “Just what you said, only I didn’t know Mrs. Veitch knew about it. I didn’t know any one heard George call me or heard the shot.”

  “How close to him were you when you shot him?”

  “I was way across the room,” she answered tonelessly. “Honestly, I didn’t intend to do it. I just shot him on impulse. I had the gun to use for defense in the event he should attack me. I was afraid he’d try to kill me. He had a violent temper, and I knew that if he ever found out about Harrison Burke, he’d do something awful. As soon as I knew he’d found out, I slipped the gun into my hand. When he started for me, I screamed and shot. I guess I dropped the gun right there on the floor. I wasn’t certain about it at the time. Honestly, the idea of getting Burke into it never occurred to me then. I was too rattled to think of anything. I simply ran out into the night.

  “I’m not a fool, and I knew how black things would look for me, particularly in view of the mess that I was in with Harrison Burke on account of the Beechwood Inn murder.

  “I just ran blindly out into the rain and didn’t have very much of an idea what I was doing. I remember grabbing a coat as I went past the hall stand. But it shows how rattled I was that I didn’t even take my own coat. It was there, but I grabbed an old overcoat that Carl Griffin sometimes wore. I threw it around me and kept running. After a while I got my wits about me and decided that I’d better call you. I didn’t know then whether or not he was dead. But I knew that if I was going to have to face him, I wanted to have you with me.

  “He didn’t run after me, so I was afraid that I’d killed him. It really wasn’t premeditated. It was just on impulse. He’d found my purse and gone through it. That was a habit he had, looking for letters. I wasn’t foolish enough to have any letters in there, but I did have those receipts, and he put two and two together.

  “He was taking a bath when I came in. He heard me, I guess. He climbed out of the bathtub, and threw the bathrobe around him, and started bellowing for me. I went up there and he had the receipts. He accused me of being the woman who was with Harrison Burke, and then he accused me of a lot of things, and said that he was going to throw me out without a penny. I became hysterical, and grabbed the gun and shot him. After I got down to the drug store, and was ready to telephone you, I realized that I was going to need somebody to stand back of me. I didn’t have any money of my own. I told you that. My husband kept all the money, and only gave me a little at a time. I knew about the will that was made out in favor of Carl Griffin, and I was afraid that I couldn’t get any money out of the estate while it was being tied up in probate. I knew that Harrison Burke would be afraid of getting his name mixed into the thing, and that he’d leave me flat. I had to have money; I had to have somebody to stand back of me. So I rang up Harrison Burke and deliberately mixed him into it. I told him that something had happened, and that his gun had figured in it. That I didn’t know who the man was that had killed him, but I did know that his gun was on the floor.

  “It was a stall that wouldn’t have gone over with you, but it went over with Burke all right. Burke was frantic.

  “I told him there was only one thing to do, and that was for him to get under cover, and fix it so they couldn’t trace the gun to him, if he could. And in the meantime, to see that you had plenty of money to go ahead and do anything that you could. Then I telephoned you and got you to come over.

  “While you were driving down there, I got to thinking how much better it would be if I could have you in a position where you were forced to get me out of it in order to save yourself and also, have some kind of an explanation that I could make to the police if the police should start suspecting me.

  “You were right about that.” She went on, “I knew that they could never convict you, because you were too smart and skillful. You could get out of it, and I figured that if they got to crowding me too close, I’d give them the information that I did, so that they’d go after you and that would clear me. If they ever tried to come back on me after you had drawn their fire, I knew that it would be an easy case to beat.”

  Mason looked up at Paul Drake and shook his head.

  “Nice little playmate, isn’t she?” he said.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Mason looked at the occupants of the room. Then tiptoed to the door, and opened it.

  Sidney Drumm stood on the threshold. There was another man back of him.

  “Hello, Perry,” he said. “We had a devil of a time finding you. We trailed Della Street to this hotel, but it took us quite a little while to find out what alias you were registered under. I’m sorry to bother you, but you’ve got to take a little ride with me. The District Attorney wants to ask you a few questions.”

  Mason nodded. “Walk right in,” he said.

  Eva Belter gave a little cry. “Perry, you’ve got to protect me! I came clean. You’ve got to stand back of me.”

  Perry looked at her, then turned abruptly to Sidney Drumm.

  “This is a break for you, Sidney,” he said. “You’re going to be able to make the arrest. This is Eva Belter, who has just confessed to the murder of her husband.”

  Eva Belter screamed, got to her feet and swayed uncertainly.

  Drumm looked from one to the other.

  “It’s a fact,” Paul Drake said.

  Mason motioned toward Della Street.

  “It’s all down there,” he said, “in black and white. We’ve got witnesses, and we’ve got her statement taken verbatim.”

  Sidney Drumm whistled under his breath.

  “By God, Perry,” he said, “that’s a lucky break for you! They were going to charge you with the murder.”

  Mason’s voice was savage, “There wasn’t any luck about it. I was willing to give her a break as long as she shot square. But when I read in the paper about her dragging me into it, I made up my mind that I was going to call for a show-down.”

  Paul D
rake said, “Do you really know where Harrison Burke is?”

  “Hell, no!” said Perry Mason. “I didn’t even get out of this room last night. I simply sat here and thought. I did get hold of Mrs. Veitch, and told her that Eva Belter was going to be in here this morning and wanted her to be here in order to corroborate a statement she was going to make to the reporters. I sent a taxi out for Mrs. Veitch and had her come in.”

  “She wouldn’t have backed you up in the statement?” asked Drake.

  “I don’t know,” said Mason. “I don’t think so. I didn’t talk with her at all. She wouldn’t talk with me. I think she’s holding something back, though. I’m satisfied she knows something. I simply wanted to have you open the door and let Eva Belter see her here for the purpose of exerting a little pressure.”

  Eva Belter stared white-faced at Perry Mason.

  “Damn you,” she said, “for a double-crossing back-stabber!”

  It was Sidney Drumm who gave the situation its last touch of irony. “Hell,” he said, “Eva Belter was the woman who told us where you were, Perry. She said she was going to see you this morning and that we could wait until someone else came here and claim we’d followed that other person. She wanted to have you think we’d followed Della Street or someone, instead of her.”

  Mason made no comment. His face was suddenly very weary.

  Chapter 16

  Perry Mason sat in his office looking very tired.

  Della Street sat across the desk from him and avoided his eyes.

  “I thought you didn’t like her,” Mason remarked.

  She kept her eyes averted.

  “I didn’t,” she admitted, “but I’m sorry that you had to be the one that made the disclosure. She relied on you to get her out of trouble. You turned her over to the officers.”

  “I didn’t do anything of the sort,” he denied. “I simply refused to be the goat.”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “I’ve known you for five years,” she said, slowly. “During that time your clients have always come first. You didn’t make the cases, and you didn’t make the clients. You took them as they came. Some of your clients got hung. Others got free. But, while you represented them, you never went back on any of them.”

  “What is this,” he asked, “a sermon?”

  “Yes,” she said, shortly.

  “Go on, then.”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s finished.”

  He got up and walked over to her, and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Della,” he said, “I’ve got one thing to ask you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Please have confidence in me,” he said, humbly.

  She looked up and met his eyes then.

  “You mean…?”

  He nodded his head.

  “She isn’t convicted,” he said, “of a damned thing until a jury brings in a verdict finding her guilty of something.”

  “But,” said Della Street, “she won’t have anything more to do with you. She’ll get another lawyer now, and she’s confessed. How are you going to get away from that confession? She repeated the confession to the police and signed it.”

  “I don’t have to get away from it. You’ve got to convict them beyond a reasonable doubt. If a jury has a reasonable doubt, it can’t convict. I can get her free yet.”

  She scowled at him.

  “Why couldn’t you have let Paul Drake tip off the police to ask her certain questions?” she said. “Why did you have to tell them?”

  “Because she’d have lied her way out of any questions the police could have asked. She’s clever, that woman. She wanted me to help her, but she figured that she’d throw me to the wolves any time the pack got too close.”

  “So you threw her instead?”

  “If you want to put it that way, yes,” Mason admitted, and took his hand from her shoulder.

  She got up and walked toward the outer office.

  “Carl Griffin is out there,” she said, “and Arthur Atwood, his lawyer.”

  “Send them in,” Mason told her in a flat, dispirited tone of voice.

  She opened the door to the outer office, held it open and beckoned to the two men.

  Carl Griffin’s face showed traces of his dissipation, but he was perfectly poised, very suave, and very much of the gentleman. He bowed his apologies to Della Street for walking in front of her as he passed through the door, smiled courteously and meaninglessly at Perry Mason, as he said, “Good afternoon.”

  Arthur Atwood was a man in his late forties, with a face that needed sunlight. His eyes were sparkling, but shifty. His head was bald from the forehead to the top where a fringe of hair ran around and down to his ears, making a fuzzy halo for the back of the head. His lips were twisted into a perpetual, professional smile, which was utterly meaningless. The face had taken on lines from that smile, deep calipers running from the nose to the corners of the mouth, with crow’s-feet radiating out from the eyes. He was a man who was hard to judge, except in one thing—he was a dangerous antagonist.

  Perry Mason indicated chairs and Della Street closed the door.

  Carl Griffin started talking. “You will pardon me, Mr. Mason, if I seemed to have misunderstood your motives in this case earlier in the game. I understand that it was your clever detective work which is largely responsible for the confession of Mrs. Belter.”

  Arthur Atwood interposed affably, “Just leave the talking to me if you will, Carl.”

  Griffin smiled suavely, bowed toward his counsel.

  Arthur Atwood hitched a chair up to the desk, sat down, looked at Perry Mason: “All right, counselor, we understand each other, I take it.”

  “I’m not certain that we do,” said Mason.

  Atwood’s lips twisted in his perpetual smile, but his sparkling eyes showed no trace of humor.

  “You’re the attorney of record,” he said, “for Eva Belter’s contest to the probate of the will. Also for her in her application for letters as special administratrix. It would simplify matters very much if you would dismiss both the contest, and the application—without prejudice, of course.”

  “Whom would it simplify matters for?” Mason asked.

  Atwood waved his hand in the direction of his client. “Mr. Griffin, of course.”

  “I’m not representing Griffin,” Mason answered curtly.

  Atwood’s eyes now joined in the smile of his lips.

  “That, of course, is true,” he said, “at the present time. However, I may state candidly, that my client has become very much impressed with the rare ability which you have shown in this matter and with the spirit of fairness which has characterized you throughout. It is, of course, a painful and embarrassing combination of circumstances all around. It comes very much as a shock to my client. However, there can now be no question as to what happened, and my client, in carrying on the business of the estate, will require plenty of competent counsel, if you understand what I mean.”

  “Exactly what do you mean?” Mason asked.

  Atwood sighed.

  “Well,” he said, “if I must speak frankly, or I might say, crudely, inasmuch as we are all here together, just the three of us, it is quite possible that my client will find that the operation of the publication, Spicy Bits, is something which will require very specialized attention. I, of course, will be busy representing the balance of the estate, and he has suggested to me that he might like to secure the services of some competent attorney to advise him, particularly with reference to the publication. In fact, to take over the publication during the period that the estate is in probate.”

  Atwood ceased speaking, and gazed significantly, with his beady, glittering eyes, at Perry Mason. Then, as Mason said nothing, he went on, “The matter would call for some expenditure of time. You would be well compensated, very well compensated, indeed.”

  Mason was blunt. “All right,” he said. “Why mince matters? What you want me to do is to dismiss the con
test all the way along the line and leave Griffin in the saddle. He’ll see that I make some money out of it. Is that the proposition?”

  Atwood pursed his lips.

  “Really, counselor, I would hesitate to commit myself upon so blunt an expression of policy, but, if you will think over the statement that I made, I think you will find that it keeps within the bounds of professional ethics, and yet is sufficiently comprehensive to cover the case.”

  “To hell with all that hooey,” Perry Mason said. “I want a plain understanding. I’ll talk plainly even if you won’t. You and I are on opposite sides of this fence. You’re representing Griffin, and trying to get control of the estate, and keep control of it. I’m representing Mrs. Belter, and I’m going to throw that will out of court. It’s a forgery, and you know it.”

  Atwood’s lips continued to smile, but his eyes were cold and hard.

  “You can’t get away with that,” he said. “It doesn’t make any difference whether the will’s a forgery or not. She destroyed the original will. She admits that in her confession. We can prove the contents of that destroyed will, and take under it.”

  “All right,” said Mason, “that’s a lawsuit. You think you can. I think you can’t.”

  “Moreover,” said Atwood, “she can’t take any of the property because she murdered him. It’s against the policy of the law for a person to inherit property from one he or she has murdered regardless of any will or other instrument.”

  Mason said nothing.

  Atwood exchanged glances with his client.

  “Do you question that?” he asked of Mason.

  “Hell, yes,” said Mason, “but I’m not going to argue it with you here. I’ll do my arguing when I get in front of a jury. Don’t think I was born yesterday. I know what you want. You want to be assured of convicting Eva Belter of first degree murder. You think I can help you show premeditation by giving proof of a motive. If you can convict her of first degree murder she can’t take any of the property. That’s the law a murderer can’t inherit. But if she’s not convicted of murder, even if she should be convicted of manslaughter, she could still inherit. You’re after the property and you want to bribe me. It won’t work.”