The Case of the Caretaker's Cat (10 page)

She put the cat in the box, stroked it for a moment or two, then gently put on the cover. She whipped a piece of string about the cover, tied it, and handed the box to Perry Mason.

The lawyer, holding the hatbox by the string, smiled reassuringly at her, and said, "Stay right here. Remember, don't answer questions. You'll hear from me after a while."

She held open the door of the bedroom. Mason walked to the outer door, opened it, and pushed his way out into the wind and rain. The cat in the box stirred uneasily.

Mason put the hatbox on the seat of the convertible coupe, climbed in behind the wheel and started the motor. The cat meowed a faint protest.

Mason spoke to the cat reassuringly, drove the car for several blocks, then swung in close to the curb by an all-night drugstore. He parked the car, got out, and picking up the hatbox, walked into the drugstore, where the clerk eyed him curiously.

Mason put the box down on the floor of the telephone booth and dialed the number of Della Street's apartment. After a few moments, he heard her voice, thick with sleep.

"Okay, kid," he said, "snap out of it. Put cold water on the face, throw on a few clothes, and be ready to open the door of your apartment when I give you a ring. I'm coming out."

"What time is it?"

"Somewhere around one o'clock."

"What's happened?" she asked.

"I can't tell you about it over the telephone."

Her voice showed that she was now fully awake. "Good Lord, Chief, I thought you only worked all night on murder cases. Now you're doing it on a cat case. How in the world can you get into trouble with a cat?"

"I do," he said cryptically, "I can; I have," and, chuckling, hung up the receiver.

"Getting me out of bed at one o'clock in the morning to show me the latest in hats?" she inquired.

The lawyer, sliding the string off the cover, said, "It simply shows how easy it is to become accustomed to environment. He was raising hell in the telephone booth."

He pulled the cover from the box. Clinker got to his feet, arched his back in a long stretch, yawned, sniffed the air, raised his forepaws to the edge of the hatbox, and leapt out onto the bed. He sniffed Della Street inquiringly, then curled into a fluffy ball by the side of her leg.

"If you're going in for a collection," she said, "it might be easier to use postage stamps. They take up less room."

She ran her fingers around the cat's ears.

"I think that's something of a compliment," Mason told her, "the way he takes to you. As I remember it, there are few people he likes."

"Going to use him as a playmate for the caretaker's cat?" she asked.

"He is the caretaker's cat."

"Why not leave him with the caretaker, then?"

"The last time I saw the caretaker, he was dead. His face wasn't pretty. There were muddy cat tracks all over his bed."

She stiffened to attention. "Who did it?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"Who do the police think did it?"

"I don't know. I don't think they do, yet."

"Who will they think did it by the time they get that far?"

"Several people might be interested in the caretaker. There's some evidence indicating the caretaker had something like a million dollars in currency in his possession. Some of it may have been locked in a safety deposit box; again, the safety deposit box may have been a blind. People will do a lot for a million dollars. Then there are some rather valuable diamonds. Ashton may have had them. I've located the green Pontiac that followed Ashton from our office. It's in the garage at Peter Laxter's town house."

"Whom do we represent?"

"The boy friend of a girl who runs a waffle parlor."

"Any retainer?"

"Do you like waffles?" he countered.

Her eyes showed anxiety. "Look here, Chief, you're not going to get mixed up in a murder case without first getting a fee?"

"I guess I've done it."

"Why don't you sit in your office and wait for clients to come to you after they get arrested, and then go into court and defend them? You're always out on the firing line, taking chances. How did you get this cat?"

"It was given to me."

"By whom?"

"The waffle girl. But we're supposed to forget that."

"You mean you want me to keep the cat here?"

"That's it."

"Under cover?"

"As much as you can. Or, if you have some friend who can keep it, it might be better than to have it here. The police may be looking for it. I have an idea the cat is going to figure in that murder."

"Please," she pleaded, "don't jeopardize your professional standing mixing into this case. Let it go. Sail on that liner for the Orient. After someone gets arrested go ahead and defend him if you want to, but don't get involved in the case itself."

There was something maternal and tender in her eyes.

Perry Mason reached out, possessed himself of her right hand, and patted it.

"Della," he said, "you're a good kid. But the stuff you want just isn't in the cards. I could get a swell rest on that liner to the Orient for just about three days, and then the inactivity would drive me crazy. I want to be working at high speed. I'm going to get ten times as much kick out of this as I would out of a trip to the Orient."

"You're going to handle the case?"

"Yes."

"And you think this young man you're representing will be accused of the murder?"

"Probably."

"He hasn't paid you any retainer?"

Mason shook his head, and then said impatiently, "To hell with the money! If a man's accused of murder and has money, I want a big slice of it as a fee. If people who are living their lives the best they can get into trouble and are accused of committing crimes of which they're innocent, I want to give them a break."

"How do you know this chap is innocent?"

"Only from the impression he made on me when I met him."

"Suppose he's really guilty?"

"Then we'll find out all about the extenuating circumstances and either make him plead guilty and get the lightest sentence we can for him, or else let him get some other lawyer."

"That's not an orthodox way of practicing law," she pointed out, but there was no reproach in either her eyes or her voice.

"Who the hell wants to be orthodox?" Mason grinned.

She matched his grin, got to her feet. "I worry over you as a mother worries over a wayward child. You're a combination of a kid and giant. I know you're going to mix into something devilish, and I feel like saying, 'Don't go near the water.'"

Mason's grin broadened. "Maternal, eh? By looking up the application blank which you filled out when you applied for your job I could find out just how much my junior you really are. I would say it was about fifteen years."

"Being gallant?" she inquired. "By looking up the records in connection with your admission to practice before the courts, I could tell just how much you're trying to flatter me."

He moved toward the door. "Take good care of the cat," he said. "Don't lose him. His name's Clinker. He may wander away if he gets the chance. We may be able to use him later."

"Will the police look for him here?"

"I don't think so. Not right away. Things aren't hot enough yet… Are you going to tell me not to go near the water?"

She shook her head. There were both pride and tenderness in her smile. "No," she said; "just don't get in over your head."

"I haven't even got my feet wet, yet," he told her, "but something seems to tell me I'm going to."

He gently closed the door, walked down the corridor to the street, and drove to Edith DeVoe's apartment.

The outer door of the apartment house was locked. Mason pushed his finger against the button opposite Edith DeVoe's apartment, held it there for several seconds. There was no answer. He took a key container from his pocket, selected a skeleton key, hesitated for several seconds, then tried Edith DeVoe's bell once more. When there was no answer, he inserted the key in the lock, and, after a moment, clicked the bolt back and entered the apartment house. He walked down the corridor to Edith DeVoe's apartment and tapped gently on the door. When there was no answer, he stood for a moment in frowning concentration, then tried the knob of the door. The knob turned, the door opened, and he stepped into a dark room.

"Miss DeVoe," he said. There was no answer.

Perry Mason switched on the light.

Edith DeVoe lay sprawled on the floor.

The window which opened on the alleyway was not entirely shut. It was open some two or three inches at the bottom. The bed had not been slept in, and the body was attired in pajamas of very thin silk. Near the body lay a piece of wood some eighteen inches long. One end was splintered, and near the other end was a tell-tale red stain.

Perry Mason, closing the door carefully behind himself, stepped forward and peered down at the body. There was a wound in the scalp near the back of the head.

The piece of wood which lay near the body had evidently been used as a club. The edges were neatly sawed. The wood was highly polished, and about an inch and a half in diameter. A fingerprint appeared very plainly imprinted in the red stain at the upper part of the wood. The varnish at the lower end was blistered.

Mason looked swiftly about the apartment. He stepped to the bathroom. It was empty, but a blood-stained towel lay on the washstand. He walked to the fireplace. There were ashes in the grate, and it was still warm. Mason looked at his watch. It was one thirty-two. Rain had drifted in through the opening in the window. The sill was glistening with moisture, and some of the water had dripped down to the hardwood floor beneath the sill.

Mason dropped to his knees beside the sprawled figure and felt for a pulse, listening for breathing.

He arose, crossed to the telephone, placed a handkerchief around the receiver so he would leave no fingerprints and called police headquarters. Speaking rapidly, in a mumbling undertone, he said, "A woman is dying from a blow on the head. Send an ambulance."

When he was certain that his message had been understood, he gave the address in the same mumbling undertone and hung up.

Mason polished the doorknob with his handkerchief, rubbing both inside and outside surfaces; then he switched off the lights, stepped into the corridor, pulled the door shut behind him, and started for the front exit of the apartment house.

As he passed an apartment, he heard a man laugh, the sound of clinking chips, and a moment later, that peculiar purring noise which is made by the corners of a deck of cards being riffled in a shuffle.

Mason walked on down the corridor. As he reached the lobby, he heard an automobile pull up to the curb. He hesitated for a moment, standing just back of the street door; then he opened the door a crack and peered out.

Hamilton Burger had just stepped to the sidewalk, and had his back turned to Perry Mason, watching Tom Glassman get out of the car.

Mason stepped back, gently closed the door behind himself, turned and walked down the corridor. He paused at the door where he had heard chips rattling and knocked.

Mason heard the sound of a chair being scraped along the floor, then complete silence from the other side of the door. He knocked again, and, after a moment, the door opened a crack, and a man's voice said, "Who is it?"

Mason smiled affably. "I'm in the adjoining apartment," he said, "and your poker game is keeping me awake. How about getting some sleep, or, if the limit isn't too high, letting me in. I don't care one way or another."

The man hesitated a moment. A booming masculine voice from the interior of the room called, "Open the door and let him in. We can use another player."

The door opened and Mason entered the room. Three men were grouped around a table. The atmosphere of the room was close and stuffy. A vacant chair marked where the man who stood at the door had been seated.

"What's the limit?" Mason asked, taking care to close the door.

"Fifty-cent limit, except in jack-pots, and then it's a dollar."

Mason took twenty dollars from his wallet. "Could you fellows use twenty dollars of outside money?" he asked.

"Could we," grinned the man with the booming voice. "It would be like manna from heaven. Sorry we kept you awake. Didn't know you could hear us."

"That's all right. I'd rather play poker than sleep, anyway. Mason is my name."

"Hammond's mine," said the man who had admitted him.

The others introduced themselves.

Mason drew up a chair, took chips, and heard men walking down the corridor toward Edith DeVoe's apartment. Some fifteen minutes later, when he was twelve dollars and thirty cents ahead of the game, he heard the low moan of a siren, and shortly afterwards, the clang of an ambulance bell.

The players looked at each other in dismay.

"Guess we'd better cash in," Mason said, "and get the evidence out of sight."

One of the men looked at him accusingly. "You aren't by any chance a detective, are you?"

Mason laughed good naturedly. "No chance," he said. "I don't think they're coming here, boys. It sounds as though there's something down the corridor that's interesting them; probably a man beating up his wife."

The men paused to listen. They could hear the sound of steps shuffling along the corridor. Hammond took his coat from the back of the chair, thrust his arms into it and said, "Okay, boys. Let's call it quits until next week. It's time to break up, anyway."

Mason stretched and yawned as he cashed in his chips. "Think I might as well go out now and get a waffle and a cup of coffee," he observed.

"I have a car out here. How about giving you a lift?"

Mason nodded. They left the apartment together. Two police cars and an ambulance were drawn up in front of the curb.

Mason's companion showed curiosity. "Wonder what's going on here. Looks as though someone had been hurt."

"It might be a good time to duck out of here," Mason said. "I don't mind putting in my nights sleeping, or playing poker, but I hate like hell to put in my spare time answering the questions asked by a lot of dumb cops."

His companion nodded. "My car's around the corner. Let's go."