The Case of the Caretaker's Cat (14 page)

"Have you," Mason asked, "entirely finished? Have you told me all the evidence?"

"No. I haven't even told you half of it."

"And I take it, Sergeant, that you intend to tell me all."

"You're damn right I intend to tell you all."

Mason inclined his head in the receptive attitude of one who is about to listen intently. But Sergeant Holcomb's voice filled every corner of the office, seemed to rattle back from the windows.

"Edith DeVoe wanted to see Douglas Keene. She telephoned and left messages for him at several places. Douglas Keene went to call on her. The manager of Edith DeVoe's apartment house happened to be leaving the house just as Douglas Keene was pressing his finger against the button which rang Edith DeVoe's bell. When the manager opened the door, Keene took advantage of it by walking in. The manager naturally stopped him and asked him where he was going. Keene said he was going to see Miss DeVoe; that she had sent for him.

"Later on the district attorney went to question her. She was lying on the floor unconscious. She'd been literally clubbed to death. We went to Douglas Keene's room. We found that garments he had worn were bloodstained. There was blood on his shirt, on his collar, on his shoes, on his trousers. He had tried to wash out the bloodstains and failed. He'd tried to burn up some of his clothes and had even failed to do that. Shreds of cloth were left in the ashes, and they gave a chemical reaction which shows there was human blood on them."

"Was the cat there?" Mason asked.

Holcomb controlled himself with an effort. "No, the cat wasn't there."

"Just how would one make an absolute identification of a cat?" Perry Mason asked. "There's no way of fingerprinting a cat, is there, Sergeant?"

"Go ahead," Holcomb said grimly, "be as smart as you want to. You're a lawyer making his living defending murderers. Two months from now you'll be disbarred. You'll be walking the streets."

"So far," Mason remarked, "I haven't defended murderers. I have only defended persons accused of murder. You must appreciate, Sergeant, that there's quite a difference. But I'm serious about the cat, Sergeant. Suppose the housekeeper and the chauffeur should both swear Keene was carrying Clinker in his arms; and suppose I should line up a couple of dozen Persian cats in front of the witnesses and ask them to pick out Clinker. Do you suppose they could do it, and in the event they pick out one cat and swear that it was Clinker, do you suppose there's any way by which we could definitely establish to the jury that they were right?"

"So that's your game, is it?" Holcomb asked.

Mason smiled urbanely. "Why no, Sergeant, that's not my game. I was just asking you a question; that's all."

Sergeant Holcomb leaned across the desk, holding both edges of it with a grip which drew the skin white and taut across the knuckles.

"After a while, Mason," he said, "we get so we know just about what to expect with you. The police department isn't as dumb as you may think it is. And, just to give you a little something to think over, as soon as you telephoned that you were going to represent Douglas Keene and that he'd surrender at five o'clock tonight, I sent some of the boys out to locate the cat. And it just happened that I knew where to send them. Just for your information, we've picked up Clinker, and he's in police custody. He was in the apartment of your very efficient secretary, Miss Della Street. And the cat has been identified at police headquarters by the chauffeur and the housekeeper, and a label has been tied around his neck. And any time you want to start juggling cats in front of a jury, you won't have to worry about taking fingerprints, or switching cats, or pulling any of your other tricks, because Clinker will be right there with a tag around his neck."

Sergeant Holcomb turned on his heel and strode toward the outer office.

For a moment, Perry Mason's face was grim and tense. Then he gave a slow smile in the direction of the newspaper reporters.

"We'd like to ask you," one of the men said, "if you agree…"

Mason said slowly, "Gentlemen, you have a damned good story. Go ahead and publish it as it is." And then clamped his lips shut in the obstinate silence of one who knows how to keep quiet.

"And I'm to keep a line open?" she asked. "And talk with anyone who calls for you?"

"Absolutely. See that nothing interferes with that. Douglas Keene may telephone in at any time. I don't want his call to be handled by the regular office system."

"Suppose he doesn't telephone in, Chief?"

"We've been over all that before."

"Suppose he's guilty? Can Sergeant Holcomb do all of those things he was threatening?"

Mason shrugged. "That," he said, "is where I have them fooled. Holcomb is trying to stick me for concealing a murderer. I've told the police Keene will surrender at five o'clock. Naturally they think I know where he is. I don't know any more about it than the man in the moon."

"Therefore, there's nothing they can do?" she asked.

"Don't worry so much; go ahead and let Shuster in here. He's probably going to deal a couple of cards from the bottom of a cold deck."

"Such as what?"

"Such as suing me for defamation of character."

"Why?"

"Because I told the district attorney what Edith DeVoe told me about that automobile exhaust business."

"But you were just passing on what she told you."

"I can't even prove that she told it to me now. She's dead and there weren't any witnesses. Go ahead and bring Shuster in, and don't forget to listen to everything that's said, and take notes so you can testify to it later on."

She nodded, slipped through the door, and, a moment later, ushered Shuster, Laxter and Oafley into the room.

Shuster twisted his lips back from protruding teeth. The perfunctory smile over, his face became a mask of reproachful gravity. "Counselor, did you inform the district attorney that my client, Samuel C. Laxter, was guilty of the murder of his grandfather, Peter Laxter?"

"Want me to answer that yes or no?" Mason inquired casually.

Shuster frowned. "Answer it," he said.

"No."

"Didn't you intimate to him that such was the case?"

"No."

"Didn't you tell him that Edith DeVoe had accused him of that crime?"

"No."

Shuster's face was a study. "Mr. Burger says you told him that."

Mason remained silent.

"Burger told Sam Laxter," Shuster went on, "that you said Edith DeVoe told you Samuel Laxter had a tube running from his exhaust to the hot air pipe that went to Peter Laxter's room."

Perry Mason's face was as grim and uncompromising as granite. "Perhaps he did, because she did, and I did."

Shuster blinked his eyes as he tried to figure out those answers, then, with a look of triumph on his face, he said, "You told Burger that she made that accusation?"

"It wasn't an accusation; she simply said she saw him seated in the automobile with the motor running and a flexible tube extending to the hot air pipe. She told me that, and I told Burger that."

"It's a lie."

"What's a lie?" Mason asked, getting to his feet ominously.

Shuster backed up nervously, holding out his hand before him. "A slander, I meant," he said, "a defamation of character."

"Has it ever occurred to you that it might be a privileged communication?" Mason inquired.

"Not if it was actuated by malice," Shuster remarked, shaking his finger at Perry Mason, but moving back of the big overstuffed leather chair so that it was between him and Mason. "And you were actuated by malice. You were trying to protect your client, Douglas Keene."

"So what?" Mason asked.

"So we want a retraction."

"Who wants a retraction?"

"Samuel Laxter does, and I do."

"Very well," Mason said, "you want a retraction – so what?"

"We want your answer."

Mason said, "I told Burger nothing but the truth, as it was told to me. I didn't vouch for the facts; I only vouched for the statement having been made for what it was worth."

"We want an apology."

"Go to hell."

Samuel Laxter stepped forward. His face was white.

"Mr. Mason," he said, "I don't know you, but I do know there's something rotten in Denmark. I'd heard that a story was being circulated, linking me with the death of my grandfather. It's a damnable lie! I've also heard that you led the officers to a surreptitious and unwarranted search of my car, in my garage, after first picking the lock of the garage in order to get across to my car. Someone had planted a long tube in my automobile without my knowledge. I don't know what protection the law gives me – that's up to Mr. Shuster – but I certainly intend to see that you're held to strict accountability for what you've done."

Mason yawned.

Shuster laid a restraining hand on Sam Laxter's arm. "Now let me do the talking," he said, "let me do the talking. Don't get excited. Keep calm, keep calm. I can handle him. You let me make the statements."

Mason sat down once more in his big swivel chair, leaned back and took a cigarette from the cigarette case on the desk. "Anything else?" he asked, tapping the end of the cigarette on his thumb-nail.

Frank Oafley said, "Mr. Mason, I want you to understand my position. My relationship with Edith DeVoe is no longer a secret. She had done me the honor to marry me shortly before her death."

He stopped for a moment while a spasm of expression crossed his face; then he went on, "She had told me about what she had seen, but I hadn't been inclined to give it much thought until after the district attorney pointed out to me how easy it would have been for someone to have put carbon monoxide into Grandfather's room.

"Naturally, this came as a big shock to me. I know my cousin well. I can't believe that he was capable of any such thing, and then I remembered that Edith had never told me that she had positively recognized Sam as the one in that car. The man in the car had his face concealed under the broad brim of Sam's hat. That was what led Edith to believe the man in the car was Sam Laxter.

"Now, if you told the officers that Edith said Sam Laxter was seated in that car, you have made a statement which was unwarranted by anything Edith said."

Mason, studying Frank Oafley's face, said speculatively, "So that's your story, is it?"

"That's my story," Oafley said, blushing.

Shuster's face was cunning. "Consider, Counselor, what a position you're in," he said to Mason. "You make a charge against my client. You can't back that charge up; you have got no evidence. You can't testify what Edith DeVoe told you because that's hearsay. Dying declarations are admissible when a person making them knows he is going to die, but this wasn't a dying declaration. When she told you this, she thought she'd live to be a hundred, so you haven't got a leg to stand on. My client can take you into court. He can trim you. He can stick you; he can soak you – but he won't do it if you make a retraction."

"What Shuster means," Oafley said, "is that you emphasize that Edith didn't know who it was in the car."

Sam Laxter's face was scowling. "I want more than that," he said. "I want a retraction and an apology. I never sat in that car, and Mason knows it."

Perry Mason stretched forth his hand to a row of books which stood on his desk, supported by book ends. He pulled out a book, opened it, and said, "Speaking of law, gentlemen, I'll read you a little law. Section 258 of the Probate Code reads as follows: 'No person convicted of the murder of the decedent shall be entitled to succeed to any portion of the estate; but the portion thereof to which he would otherwise be entitled to succeed goes to the other persons entitled thereto under the provisions of this chapter.' There is some law for you to think over, Frank Oafley."

Shuster sputtered into speech with moist vehemence. "What a trick!" he exclaimed. "What a scheme! He tries to turn you one against the other, reading from his law books, making his dirty slanders. Close your ears to his words, close your hearts to his thoughts, close your…"

Mason interrupted, speaking directly to Frank Oafley. "You would like to protect your cousin," he said, "but you know as well as I do that Edith DeVoe wasn't the sort of girl to jump at false conclusions. Perhaps she didn't see the man's face, but she saw the man's hat, she heard his voice and she thought that man was Sam Laxter."

Oafley's forehead knitted thoughtfully as he said slowly, "She did hear his voice."

"Go ahead," Sam Laxter said bitterly, "put on an act, Frank; pretend you're being convinced, but you're not fooling me any. The minute this lawyer showed you that you could hog all of my inheritance by getting me convicted of murder, I knew what was going to happen."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Shuster half screamed. "Don't do it; don't fight. It's a trap. Don't walk into it. He gets you fighting between yourselves and then his damn cat inherits the estate. What a scheme! What a scheme! Oh, what a trick!"

Mason, looking at Sam Laxter, said, "How do you account for that tube being found in your car?"

"Someone planted it," Laxter said belligerently. "You led the officers to the garage and they 'found' a tube in my car, after you suggested they look for it."

Mason said, "Do you think I planted the tube in your car?"

Shuster rushed in front of Sam Laxter, grabbed him by the lapels of his coat, pushed him back and shouted, "Don't answer! Don't answer! It's another trap. He gets you to charge that he planted it and then he sues you for defamation of character. You can't prove he planted it there; don't say it; don't say anything. Let me do the talking. Keep quiet, everybody; keep calm. Don't get excited. I'll handle it."

Oafley moved a step closer to Laxter and said, over Shuster's shoulder, "Are you insinuating that I planted it there, Sam?"

Laxter, his voice edged with bitterness, said, "Why not? You don't fool me any, Frank Oafley. You'd do a damn sight more than that for half a million dollars. I'm commencing to see this thing in a new light now."

"You forget," Oafley said, with cold dignity, "that it was Edith DeVoe who saw this. I didn't see it, and when she first told me, I didn't attach any significance to it."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Shuster pleaded, turning his head rapidly to look beseechingly first at Laxter, then at Oafley. "Gentlemen, calm yourselves. This isn't what we came here for. Keep cool. Remember what I told you to say. Let me do the talking. Shut up, everybody."

"Edith Oafley," Sam Laxter sneered, paying no attention to the lawyer. "If she weren't dead, I could say plenty about her."

Oafley, with an inarticulate expression of rage, pushed Shuster aside with his right hand and slapped Laxter's face with his left.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Shuster screamed. "Remember…"

Sam Laxter's left fist, swinging in a sizzling blow aimed at Oafley's jaw, caught Shuster full in the face as the little attorney pawed at Laxter's coat. Shuster went to the floor, moaning. Laxter swung his bandaged right arm, struck Oafley a glancing blow on the cheek. Oafley stepped in, swinging his right. Laxter missed with a left. For a moment the two men stood toe to toe, slugging wildly, their blows doing but little damage.

Shuster, on the floor, tugged at their trousers legs. "Gentlemen, gentlemen," he pleaded, his voice half muffled by his cut and rapidly swelling lips.

Perry Mason elevated his feet to the desk, tilted back in his swivel chair and puffed complacently at his cigarette, watching the melee with whimsical humor.

Abruptly, Oafley stepped back. "I'm sorry, Sam," he said. "I forgot your arm was hurt."

Shuster bobbed up between them, a palm against the vest of each, trying to push them apart. The men, breathing hard, paid no attention to his futile efforts, but stood staring at each other.

"Don't worry about my arm," Sam Laxter said bitterly, then glanced at the bandage. It showed a red stain where the wound had been reopened.

"Come away, come away," Shuster said; "he's full of tricks. He's clever. Didn't I warn you before I came in here?"

Oafley said slowly, his chest heaving, his face flushed, "Just keep your tongue off Edith, that's all."

He turned abruptly, crossed the office, jerked open the corridor door. Shuster hesitated a moment, then ran after him, shouting, "Mr. Oafley! Mr. Oafley! Come back here a moment, Mr. Oafley!"

Oafley called back over his shoulder, "You can go to hell. I'm going to get a lawyer of my own."

Shuster looked at Sam Laxter with an expression of consternation on his face, then turned to Perry Mason. "You did it!" he screamed. "You did it deliberately! You turned these men one against the other. You put suspicion in their minds. You made an issue out of Edith DeVoe. You…"

"Close the door," Perry Mason interrupted in a calm tone of voice, "as you leave."

Shuster put his hand through Sam Laxter's arm.

"Come," he said. "The law gives us our remedy."