Read Online The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner - Free Book Online Page B

could be done for him. I went up to his study. He was in there. He'd been taking a bath, and had thrown a bathrobe around himself. He was lying there – dead."
    "Lying where?" pressed Mason, remorselessly.
    "Oh, don't make me be so specific," she snapped. "I can't tell you. It was some place near the bathroom. He'd just come out of his bath. He must have been standing in the bathroom door when this argument took place."
    "How do you know he was dead?"
    "I could tell by looking at him. That is, I think he was dead. Oh, I'm not sure. Please come out and help me. If he isn't dead, it's all right. There won't be any trouble. If he is, we're all of us in a hell of a mess."
    "Why?"
    "Because everything's going to come out. Don't you see? Frank Locke knows all about Harrison Burke, and he'll naturally think that Harrison Burke killed him. That will make Burke mention my name, and then anything may happen. Suspicion may even shift to me."
    Mason said, "Oh, forget it. Locke knows about Burke all right. But Locke is nothing but a lightweight and a figurehead. As soon as he loses your husband as a prop, he won't be able to stand up. Don't think for a minute that Harrison Burke was the only man who had it in for your husband."
    "No," she insisted, "but Harrison Burke had the motive, more so than any of the others. The others didn't know who ran the paper. Harrison Burke knew. You told him."
    "So he told you that, eh?" said Mason.
    "Yes, he told me that. What did you have to go to him for?"
    "Because," said Mason, grimly, "I wasn't going to take him for a free ride. He was getting a lot of service, and I intended to make him pay for it. I wasn't going to have you put up all the money."
    "Don't you think," she said, "that that was something for me to decide?"
    "No."
    She bit her lip, started to say something, then changed her mind.
    "All right," he said. "Now listen and get this straight. If he's dead there's going to be a lot of investigation. You've got to keep your nerve. Have you any idea who it was that was in that house?"
    "No," she said, "not to be sure; just what I could gather from the tone of the man's voice."
    "All right," he told her. "That's something. You said you couldn't hear what was being said?"
    "I couldn't," she said, slowly, "but I could hear the sound of their voices. I could recognize the tones. I heard my husband's voice, and then this other man's voice."
    "Had you ever heard that other voice before?"
    "Yes."
    "Do you know who it was?"
    "Yes."
    "Well, don't be so damned mysterious," he said. "Who was it? I'm your lawyer. You've got to tell me."
    She turned and faced him. "You know who it was," she said.
    "I know?"
    "Yes."
    "Look here, one of us is crazy. How would I know who it was?"
    "Because," she said, slowly, "it was you!"
    His eyes became cold, hard and steady.
    "Me?"
    "Yes, you! Oh, I didn't want to tell! I wasn't going to let you think I knew. I was going to protect your secret! But you wormed it out of me. But I won't tell any one else, never, never, never! It's just a secret that you and I share."
    He stared at her with his lips tightening. "So that's the kind of a playmate you are, eh?"
    She met his eyes and nodded, slowly.
    "Yes, Mr. Mason, I'm the sort you can trust. I'm never going to betray you."
    He sucked in a deep breath, then sighed.
    "Oh, hell," he said, "what's the use!"
    There was a moment of silence. Then Perry Mason asked, in a voice that was entirely without expression: "Did you hear a car drive away – afterwards?"
    She hesitated a moment, and then said: "Yes, I think I did, but the storm was making a lot of racket up there with the trees rubbing against the house and everything. But I think I heard a motor."
    "Now listen," he told her. "You're nervous and you're unstrung. But if you're going to face a bunch of detectives and start talking that way, you're just going to get yourself into trouble. You'd either better have a complete breakdown and get a physician who will refuse to let any