The Case of the Sulky Girl (11 page)

"Did you know about the mileage then?" she asked.

"I suspected it."

"How did it happen you suspected it?"

"Because I knew you'd been lying to me."

Her eyes blazed.

"Don't talk to me like that!" she said.

He simply grinned at her. After a moment the angry light left her eyes.

"You've got to figure you're trapped on that car business," he told her. "You've got to switch around on that."

"But," she said, "that's going to bring Rob into it. If they know Rob was there, that's going to make an awful mess, because there was bad blood between Rob and my uncle."

"Did Rob see your uncle the night he was murdered?" asked Mason.

She shook her head, hesitated a moment, then nodded it.

"Yes," she said, "he did."

"And the reason you changed your story just now and admitted it," he said, "is that you suddenly remembered there is someone who knows Rob saw your uncle. Who is that someone – Don Graves?"

She nodded her head again.

Perry Mason stepped to the door of the outer office.

"Della," he said, "get me Doctor Prayton on the telephone right away. Tell his nurse that it's vitally important – a matter of life and death. Get him on the telephone personally, and do it now."

"Yes," she said. "There's a Mr. Paul Drake in the office who wants to see you about a personal matter. He won't tell me what it is."

"All right," snapped Perry Mason. "Tell him to wait," and he stepped back into the office, slamming the door.

"Now," he told the girl, "you're going to have a nervous breakdown. You'll be sent to a sanitarium under another name. The police will find you sooner or later. But I want it to be later. Don't let anyone know who you are, don't show any undue interest in the newspaper reports of the case, and, no matter what happens, don't get stampeded."

She stared at him searchingly.

"How do I know I can trust you?" she asked.

He met her gaze with a steady stare.

"That's one of the things you can use your own judgment about," he said, "and it's going to make a hell of a lot of difference what you do."

"All right," she told him, "I'm going to trust you."

He nodded.

"Under those circumstances," he said, "I'll order the ambulance right now before Doc Prayton gets here."

He was a tall man, with a long neck that was thrust forward inquiringly. His eyes were protruding, and glassy, and held a perpetual expression of droll humor. Nothing ever fazed him. In his life, murders were everyday occurrences; love nests as common as automobiles, and hysterical clients merely part of an everyday routine.

He sat in the big high-backed leather chair in Perry Mason's office, and turned sideways, so that his long legs were crossed over the right hand arm of the chair. A cigarette was in his mouth, hanging pendulously at an angle from his lower lip.

Perry Mason, seated back of the big desk, stared at the detective with patient eyes that were calmly watchful. His manner was that of a veteran fighter relaxed in his corner, waiting for the sounding of the gong. He looked like a man who would presently lose his relaxed watchfulness, spring from the chair, and engage in swift conflict, with the ferocity of a tiger.

"Well," said Drake, "what's eating you?"

"Awhile back," said Perry Mason, "you were telling me something about a rough shadow."

Paul Drake inhaled placidly on his cigarette. His glassy, protruding eyes watched Perry Mason with an expression of quizzical humor.

"You must have a good memory," he said. "That was a long time ago."

"Never mind when it was," Mason told him. "I want to get the lowdown on it."

"Somebody trying it on you?" asked the detective.

"No," said Mason. "But I have an idea I can use it! Give me the sketch."

Paul Drake removed the cigarette from his mouth, pinched it out, and dropped it into an ashtray.

"It's a stunt in detective work," he said. "We don't ordinarily talk about it – not to outsiders, anyway. It's a psychological third degree. It's predicated on the idea that a man who has something on his mind that he's trying to conceal, is likely to be nervous."

"How does it work?" Mason asked tonelessly.

"Well, let's figure that you're working on a case, and you figure somebody has got some knowledge – not just ordinary knowledge, but a sort of guilty knowledge that he's trying to conceal. You've got two or three ways of approaching him in order to get him to spill the beans. One of them is to use the routine stunt of getting an attractive woman to get acquainted with him, and start him boasting. Another one is to plant some man who becomes friendly with him, and gets his confidence.

"Usually one of those ways works out. But sometimes they don't work. Sometimes a man won't fall for a woman, or, if he does, won't start boasting, and he'll get suspicious if one of your operatives starts getting friendly with him. That's when we use the rough shadow. It takes two men to work a rough shadow job. First, you have your contact man who makes a contact with the suspect, but can't seem to get under his hide, can't get him to talk.

"Well, you pick the time and a suitable place, and have your rough shadow trailing along behind. The contract man starts the fireworks by giving a signal.

"Of course, you understand, shadowing is a job in itself. The public gets goofy ideas about the work of a shadow, and how he operates. The public gets the idea that a shadow puts on disguises and ducks into doorways or hides behind telephone poles, and all that sort of stuff. They get that way from looking at the movies and reading a lot of detective stories written by guys that don't know anything about the detective business.

"As a matter of fact, your real shadow is a smooth guy who almost never uses a disguise. He's just a casual, innocent-looking bystander. No matter what happens, he never gets rattled and never does any of this business of ducking in a doorway. He looks so matter-of-fact that the suspect always takes him as part of the general scenery, and never thinks of him as an individual."

"I know all that, in a general way," Perry Mason told him. "What I want to get straight is just how this rough shadow game is worked."

"Well, that's simple," said the detective. "It's like all of the good things – they're simple when you come right down to analyze them. The rough shadow simply acts the way the suspect figures a shadow should act. In other words, he quits being a regular shadow, and becomes crude. He does all the things that the suspect naturally expects a detective would do. He hides behind telephone poles and ducks in doorways, and all of that stuff."

"So that the suspect knows he's being shadowed?" asked Perry Mason.

"That's the idea," said Drake, taking another cigarette from a case in his pocket, and tapping it gently on his thumb nail.

"You see, the contact man has established a certain amount of friendly relations with the suspect. The suspect, however, is a guy who won't talk about the thing that the contact man wants him to talk about, so the contact man gets a shadow to tail along behind. The suspect never knows that he's being tailed, because the shadow is a smooth worker. But, when the circumstances are right, the contact man gives a signal, and then the shadow gets crude about his methods. He starts ducking around behind telephone poles, putting on disguises, and doing the hundred and one amateurish things which defeat the very purpose of a skilled shadow. Naturally, the suspect takes a tumble that he's being tailed.

"Now, it's a funny thing about a man finding out that he's being shadowed, particularly a man who ain't used to it. As soon as he finds that somebody's tailing him around, he starts getting nervous. Usually the first thing he does is to start walking faster, and looking back over his shoulder. Naturally, the contact man has the rough shadow game sprung when he's walking with the suspect, and the contact man always slows down and saunters along.

"So the suspect wants to hurry things up a little bit, and he's nervous and jumpy all over. After a while, ninety-nine chances out of a hundred, he'll turn to the contact man and say that there's a detective following him and he wants to ditch the shadow. The contact man helps him to do it, and that makes the suspect loosen up and take the contact man into his confidence."

"Suppose the suspect doesn't say anything to the contact man?" asked the lawyer.

"Then," said Drake, "the contact man says something to the suspect. He taps him on the shoulder, and says: 'Listen, old man, I don't want to get personal, but do you know there's somebody shadowing you?' Or else, he may say: 'Say, look at that fellow behind us. I believe he's shadowing me.' If it's a crime he's working on, the contact man usually pretends that the rough shadow is tailing him, and opens up and confesses to the suspect that he's been guilty of a crime somewhere, and that he's afraid the dicks are on his trail. He asks the suspect to help him ditch the rough shadow. They rush into buildings, go up and down elevators, mingle with crowds, and all that sort of stuff, and when the contact man gives a signal, the rough shadow steps out of the picture, and the suspect thinks he's been ditched.

"It's just an angle of the game that sometimes brings results. You can nearly always get a man talking when you pull a rough shadow on him."

"All right," said Perry Mason, "I want to work a rough shadow game."

"Maybe you won't need a rough shadow," Drake pointed out. "It's something we use only as a last resort. Usually we can build up a friendship and get people to talk. A slick operative has a knack of making people spill facts."

"No," said Mason, "this is an unusual case, and I want a contact operative who is of a certain type."

"What's the type?" asked the detective.

"A middle-aged woman who can pretend she has had to work hard all her life. Get somebody who hasn't any particular beauty or figure; who has wrinkled hands and a heavy figure."

"Okay," said Drake. "I've got just the woman. She's clever, and she's hard-boiled. Who do you want to have her contact?"

"Mrs. Edna Mayfield, the housekeeper for Edward Norton."

"The man who was murdered?"

"The man who was murdered."

Drake whistled.

"Think she's mixed up in the murder?" he asked.

"I don't know just what she's mixed up in," Perry Mason said slowly, "but she's got information. I want that information."

"They've got the fellow that did the murder, haven't they?" asked the detective, his glassy eyes suddenly losing their expression of droll humor, and containing a glint of quick appraisal. "Wasn't it the chauffeur or somebody that pulled the job?"

"So I understand," said Mason noncommittally.

"You're representing Frances Celane, the young woman who's the beneficiary under the trust fund and the will?"

"Yes."

"Okay, now just what do you want me to get out of her?"

"Anything that she knows," said Perry Mason slowly.

"You mean about the murder?"

"About anything."

Paul Drake let his glassy eyes study the tip of the cigarette and the smoke which eddied upward from it.

"Look here," he said, "let's be frank with each other. I know you well enough to know that if you're getting me to start work on this murder case, that there's an angle to it that the police haven't got."

"I didn't say I wanted you to work on the murder case," Perry Mason said slowly.

"No," said Drake significantly, "you didn't say that."

There was a moment or two of silence, then Perry Mason said, slowly and impressively: "I want you to find out everything that that housekeeper knows. I don't care what it's about."

Paul Drake made a gesture with his shoulders.

"Don't get me wrong," he said. "I'm not curious, and I don't want you to misunderstand me. But just suppose that some of the information this woman spills wouldn't look so well for your client?"

"I want to get the information," said Perry Mason.

"Sure, I know," said Drake. "But suppose that we get it through a couple of operatives that I'll put on the case. And suppose the information should be something you would want to keep under cover? I try to get dependable people to work for me, but things have a habit of leaking out in time."

"Yes," said Perry Mason slowly, "in time."

Once more there was an interval of silence.

"Well?" asked the detective.

"I think," said Mason, "that this is another case where I'm going to be working against time. I don't think there's any information that your operatives will get that the police won't get sooner or later. I want to have it sooner, and want the police to get it later."

Drake nodded.

"All right," he said, "I get the sketch. I just wanted to be certain there wasn't any misunderstanding between us. Misunderstandings in my business make for dissatisfied clients, and I want to keep my clients satisfied."

"All right," Mason told him. "We understand each other on that.

"Now, there's one other thing. A fellow by the name of Don Graves, secretary to Edward Norton, was a witness to the murder itself. He's told the police one story, and me another. He may be dangerous. I want to find out confidentially whether he really did see a woman in the room at the time the murder blow was struck, or whether he's going to say he did, which amounts to the same thing.

"Now, do you suppose that you could get someone to contact him without creating too much suspicion, and find out just what he's really going to testify to? If there's any way of doing it, I'd like to get a written statement out of him."

"Any money for expenses?" asked the detective.

"Plenty of it," said the lawyer.

"Well, suppose I get somebody to go to him and tell him he's representing a tabloid newspaper, or a true detective story magazine, and wants the account of an eye-witness, get him to submit the manuscript signed and sworn to, and offer to pay him by the word?"

"Okay," said Mason, "provided there aren't too many words."

The detective grinned.

"You mean, provided the words are of the right kind."

"Well," said the lawyer, "I guess that amounts to about the same thing."

Drake got up and flipped his cigarette into a brass cuspidor.

"Okay," he said, "I'll get started."

"You'll let me know progress?"

"I'll let you know progress."

"Concentrate heavy on that housekeeper. She's a tartar and you'll have to watch her."

"Mail reports?" asked the detective.

"No. Make them orally or not at all."

There was a knock at the door, and Della Street glanced significantly at Perry Mason.

"That's okay," he said, "tell me what it is, Della."

"Mr. Crinston is out here. He says his business is important and he can't wait."

"Very well," said Mason, "I'll see him."

He flashed a meaning glance to Drake and said to the detective in a tone of voice sufficiently loud to carry into the outer office, "That's quite all right, Mr. Drake. I'm busy on an important matter right now, and I can't give it my immediate attention, but you've got ten days within which to make an appearance, and I'll draw up a demurrer and file it in court. That'll carry the thing along and keep you from being in default until we can go into greater details."