The Case of the Velvet Claws (17 page)

"I don't know," she said, "I've lost them."

"That," Mason said, "clinches it."

"Clinches what?" she asked.

"The fact that you killed him. You won't tell me what happened, so I'll tell you what happened.

"You had been out with Burke. You came in, and Burke left you at the door. You went upstairs, and your husband heard you coming. He was in the bath at the time. He was in a towering rage. He jumped out of the bath, threw the robe around him, and called to you to come into his suite. You went in there and he showed you the two receipts that he'd found in your purse while you were out. They had my name on them. I'd been there and told him what it was that I was trying to keep out of Spicy Bits. He put two and two together, and knew who it was that I was representing right then."

"Why I never heard of such a thing!" she said.

He grinned at her. "Oh, yes, you did! You knew that it was a show-down right then, and you shot him. He fell, and you rushed out of the place, but you played it pretty smooth at that. You dropped the gun on the floor, knowing that it could be traced to Harrison Burke and could never be traced any farther. You wanted to get Harrison Burke in it, so that he'd have to get you out. And you wanted to get me in it for the same reason. You went down and telephoned Burke and told him that something had happened, and that his gun would be found, that he'd better get out and lie low, and that his only hope was to keep sending me plenty of money so that I would go ahead with the case.

"Then you telephoned to me and got me to come out there. You told me that you recognized my voice as the voice of the man who was in the room with your husband because you wanted my help, and also because you wanted to fix it so that I couldn't prove an alibi if you wanted to spring this business about recognizing my voice in the apartment.

"You figured that if you could drag me and Harrison Burke both into the mess, we'd get you out while we were getting ourselves out. You figured that I'd get busy and square the thing some way, with Burke's money back of me, and the fact that I was in a jam to spur me on.

"You figured that you could pretend you didn't realize just how much you had me in your power by saying that you recognized my voice as that of the man in the room with your husband.

"Also, you figured that if you got in a position where they commenced to put the screws on you, you'd switch the whole thing to me, and let Burke and me fight it out between us."

She was staring at him now her face chalk-white, her eyes dark with panic.

"You've got no right to talk that way," she charged.

"The hell I haven't!" he said. "I've got proof."

"What kind of proof?"

He laughed harshly. "What do you think I was doing all the time you were being questioned last night?" he said. "I got in touch with Harrison Burke, and we got in touch with the housekeeper. The housekeeper was trying to protect you, but she knows that you came in with Burke and that your husband called to you as you went upstairs. She knows that he was looking for you earlier in the evening, and that he had your purse, and had found the two receipts with my signature on them.

"When you had the receipts made out without any name on them, you thought it would be all right. But you forgot that my name was signed to them, and that as soon as your husband knew the case that I was working on and found the receipts in your purse, he knew that you were the woman in the case."

Her face was twisting now. "You're my lawyer. You can't use all of the things that I've told you to build up a case against me. You've got to be loyal to my interests."

He laughed bitterly.

"I suppose I should sit tight and let you drag me into the murder, so that you can walk out, eh?"

"I didn't say that. I just want you to be loyal to me."

"You're a hell of a person to talk of loyalty."

She tried another defense. "All that is a mess of lies," she charged, "and you can't prove it."

Perry Mason reached for his hat.

"Maybe I can't prove it," he said, "but you put in the night making wild statements to the District Attorney. I'm going down and make a statement now. When I get done they'll have a pretty good idea of the real facts of the case. What with telephoning to Harrison Burke about the gun, and telling him to get out, and the motive that you had in order to keep your husband from discovering your affair with Burke, the police will have a pretty good case."

"But I didn't gain anything by his death."

"That's another slick thing," he said coldly, "that is just like everything else you did. It's just slick enough to look good on the face, but not clever enough to really get by. The forgery of that will was a good job."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said," he snapped. "Your husband told you that you were disinherited, or else you found the will in his safe. At any rate, you knew the terms of the will, and you knew where it was kept. You tried to figure some way of getting around that will. You knew that if you destroyed it, it wouldn't do you any good because Carl Griffin and Arthur Atwood, his lawyer, had seen the will, and that your husband had told them about it. If it was missing they'd suspect you.

"But you figured that if you could trap Griffin into claiming under the will and then prove that the will was a forgery, you'd have Griffin in a questionable position. So you went ahead and forged the will that your husband had drawn, making the forgery crude enough to be easily detected, but copying the will word for word. Then you planted your forged will where you could get it whenever you wanted to.

"When you had me at the house, examining the body, you pretended to be overcome with emotion. You wouldn't come near the body. But while I was busy looking things over, you got the original will and destroyed it. You planted your forged copy. Naturally Griffin and his lawyer walked into the trap and claimed that the will was the original holographic will of George Belter, because they knew the terms of the genuine will.

"As a matter of fact, it's such a clumsy forgery, that they can't even get a handwriting expert to testify that it's genuine. They realize now the position that they're in, but they've already filed the will and made affidavits to the effect that it's genuine. They don't dare to back up. It's pretty slick."

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.