The Case of the Velvet Claws (4 page)

Directly across the street was the building in which Spicy Bits had its editorial offices.

Mason was half way through the last cigarette in the package, when Frank Locke came out of the building.

Locke walked with a furtive manner, glancing about him mechanically, with eyes that didn't seem to be looking for anything in particular, but were peering, purely as a matter of habit. His appearance was that of a fox who has been prowling until after daylight and is caught slinking back to his lair by the rays of the early sun.

Perry Mason flipped away the cigarette and pressed his foot on the starter. The light coupe slid away from the curb and into the stream of traffic.

Locke turned to the right at the corner and hailed a taxicab. Mason trailed the cab closely until traffic thinned slightly, when he dropped farther behind.

Frank Locke got out in the middle of the block, paid off the cab, and went down an areaway where he knocked on the door. A panel slid back; then the door opened. Mason could see a man bow and smile. Locke walked in and the man slammed the door shut.

Perry Mason parked his car half a block away, took out a fresh package of cigarettes, broke the cellophane, and started smoking again.

Frank Locke was in the speakeasy for three quarters of an hour. Then he came out, looked quickly about him, and walked to the corner. The alcohol had given him a certain air of assurance, and caused him to throw his shoulders back slightly.

Perry Mason watched while Locke found a cruising cab, and climbed in. Mason trailed along behind the cab until Locke discharged it in front of a hotel. Then he parked his car, went into the hotel lobby, and looked cautiously around him. There was no sign of Locke.

Mason looked the lobby over. The place was a commercial type of hotel, catering to salesmen and conventions. There was a line of telephone booths, with an operator stationed at a desk. Quite a few people were in the lobby.

Perry Mason moved slowly and cautiously about, looking the people over. Then he walked over to the desk.

"Can you tell me," he asked the clerk, "whether or not Frank Locke has a room here?"

The clerk ran his finger down the card index system, and said, "We have a John Lock."

"No," said Mason, "this is Frank Locke."

"He's not with us. Sorry," said the clerk.

"That's all right," said Mason, turning away.

He crossed the lobby to the dining room and looked in there. There were a few people eating at the tables but Locke was not among them. There was a barber shop in the basement, and Mason went down the stairs and peered in through the glass partition.

Locke was in the third chair from the end, his face covered with hot towels. Mason recognized him by the tweed suit, and tan shoes.

Mason nodded and went back up the stairs to the lobby. He crossed to the girl at the telephone desk.

"All the booth calls are handled through you?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Okay. I can show you how to pick up twenty dollars pretty easy."

She stared at him, and asked, "Are you kidding me?"

Mason shook his head. "Listen," he said, "I want to get a number, and that's all."

"How do you mean?"

"Just this," he said, "I'm going to put through a call for a man. He probably won't take the call right away, but will come up here to get it later on. He's in the barber shop now. After he talks with me, he's going to call a number. I want to know what that number is."

"But," said the girl, "suppose he doesn't put the call through here?"

"In that case," Mason told her, "you've done the best you can, and you get the twenty bucks anyway."

"I'm not supposed to give out information about those things," the girl protested.

"That's why you're getting twenty bucks for it," Mason said smiling. "That, and listening in on the call."

"Oh, I couldn't listen in on a call, and tell you what was said."

"You don't have to. I'll tell you what's said. All I want you to do is check up on it, so as to make sure that the number I get is the number I want."

She hesitated, looked furtively about her as though fearful that some one might know what they were talking about, merely from a casual inspection.

Perry Mason took out two ten dollar bills from his pocket, folded them, and twisted them quietly.

The eyes of the girl dropped to the bills, and remained there. "Okay," she said, at length.

Mason passed over the twenty dollars.

"The man's name," he told her, "is Locke. I'll call in in about two minutes, and have him paged. Now the conversation will be this. Locke will call a party and ask if it's all right to pay four hundred dollars for information about the name of a woman. The party will tell him it's all right."

The girl nodded her head, slowly.

"Do incoming calls come in through you?" asked Mason.

"No," she said, "not unless you ask for station thirteen."

"All right, I'll ask for station thirteen."

He grinned at her, and went out.

He found a drug store in the next block which had a public telephone. He called the number of the hotel, and asked for station thirteen.

"Okay," he said, when he heard the girl's voice. "I'm calling for Frank Locke. Have him paged and be sure that you tell him to come to your station for the call. He probably won't come now, but I'll hold the line. He's in the barber shop. But don't tell the bellboy that I said he was. Simply tell him to look in the barber shop."

"I getcha," said the girl.

He held the line for some two minutes, and then the girl's voice said, "He said to leave your number, and he'd call you back."

"That's fine," said Mason, "the number is Harrison 23850. But tell the bellboy to be sure that he goes to your station to get the call."

"Sure, don't worry about that."

"All right," said Mason, "tell him to ask for Mr. Smith at that number."

"Any initials?"

"No, just Smith, and the number. That's all."

"Okay," she said. "I gotcha."

Mason hung up.

He waited approximately ten minutes, and then the telephone rang.

He answered it in a high-pitched, querulous voice, and heard Locke's voice speaking cautiously at the other end of the wire.

"Listen," said Mason, using the high-pitched voice, "let's not have any misunderstanding about this. You're Frank Locke from Spicy Bits?"

"Yes," said Locke. "Who are you, and how did you know where to reach me?"

"I got into the office about two minutes after you'd left, and they told me that I could reach you in a speakeasy out on Webster Street, or later on, here in the hotel."

"How the devil did they know that?" asked Locke.

"I don't know," said Mason. "That's what they told me. That's all."

"Well, what was it you wanted?"

"Listen," said Mason, "I know you don't want to talk business over the telephone. But this has got to be handled fast. You folks aren't in business for your health. I know that, the same as everybody else does. And I ain't in business for my health either."

"Listen," Locke's voice was cautious. "I don't know who you are, but you'd better come and see me personally. How far are you from the hotel here?"

Mason said, "I'm nowheres near the hotel. Now listen, I can give you something that's valuable to you. I won't give it out over the telephone, and, if you don't want it, I've got another market for the information. All I want to know is whether or not you're interested. Would you like to find out the name of the woman that was with Harrison Burke last night?"

There was silence over the telephone for some four or five seconds.

"We're a publication that deals with spicy bits of information about prominent people," said Locke, "and we're always glad to receive any information that is news."

"Nix on that hooey," said Mason. "You know what happened. And I know what happened. A list was made up, and Harrison Burke's name wasn't on that list. Neither was the name of the woman who was with him. Now, is it worth a thousand dollars to you to have absolute proof who that woman was?"

"No," said Locke, firmly and decisively.

"Well, that's all right," said Mason hastily. "Is it worth five hundred to you?"

"No."

"Well," insisted Mason, putting a whining note in his voice, "I tell you what I'll do. I'll let you have it for four hundred dollars. And that's absolutely bottom price. I've got another market that's offering three hundred and fifty. I've gone to a' lot of trouble getting you located, and it's going to take four hundred for you to sit in."

"Four hundred is a lot of money."

"The information I've got," said Mason, "is a lot of information."

"You'd have to give me something besides the information," said Locke. "I'd want something we could use as proof if we ran into a libel suit."

"Sure," said Mason, "you give me the four hundred dollars when I give you the proof."

Locke was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, "Well, I'll have to think it over a little while. I'll call you back and let you know."

"I'll wait here at this number," Mason said. "You call me back here," and hung up.

He sat on a stool at the ice cream counter and drank a glass of plain carbonated water, without haste and without showing any emotion. His eyes were thoughtful, but his manner was calm.

At the end of six or seven minutes the telephone rang again, and Mason answered it. "Smith talking," he whined.

Locke's voice came over the wire. "Yes, we'd be willing to pay that price provided we could get the proof."

"Okay," said Mason, "you be in your office tomorrow morning, and I'll get in touch with you there. But don't back out on me now, because I'm turning down this three hundred and fifty dollar offer."

"Listen, I'd like to see you tonight and get the thing cleaned up right now." There was a certain quaver of excitement in Locke's voice.

"You can't do that," Mason told him. "I could give you the information tonight, but I can't give you the proofs until tomorrow."

"Well," insisted Locke, "you could give me the information tonight, and then I'd pay you when you brought in the proofs tomorrow."

Mason gave a mocking laugh. "Now I'll tell one," he said.

Locke said, irritably: "Oh, well, have it your own way."

Mason chuckled. "Thanks," he said, "I think I will," and hung up the receiver.

He walked back to his automobile and sat in it for almost twenty minutes. At the end of that time, Frank Locke came out of the hotel, accompanied by a young woman. He had been shaved and massaged until his skin showed a trace of red under its sallow brown. He had the smugly complacent air of a man of the world, who rather enjoys knowing his way about.

The young woman with him was not over twenty-one or two, if one could judge by her face. She had a well curved figure, which was displayed to advantage; a perfectly expressionless face; expensive garments and just the faintest suggestion of too much make-up about her. She was beautiful in a certain full blown manner.

Perry Mason waited until they had taken a taxi, then he went into the hotel, and walked over to the telephone desk.

The girl looked up with anxious eyes, put a surreptitious hand to the front of her waist, and pulled out a piece of paper.

On the piece of paper had been scribbled a telephone number: Freyburg 629803.

Perry Mason nodded to her and slipped the piece of paper in his pocket.

"Was that the conversation – that line about paying for information?" he asked.

"I can't divulge what went over the line."

"I know," said Mason, "but you'd tell me if that wasn't the conversation, wouldn't you?"

"Maybe," she said.

"All right, then, are you telling me anything?"

"No!"

"That's all I wanted to know," he told her, and grinned.

"Drumm in here?" he asked.

One of the men nodded, and jerked a thumb toward an inner door.

Perry Mason walked in.

"Sidney Drumm," he said to one of the men who was sitting on the corner of a desk, smoking. Some one raised his voice, and yelled: "Oh, Drumm, come on out."

A door opened, and Sidney Drumm looked around until he saw Perry Mason, then grinned.

"Hello, Perry," he said.

He was a tall, thin man, with high cheek bones, and washed-out eyes. He would have looked more natural with a green eye-shade on his forehead, a pen behind his ear, keeping a set of books on a high stool, than in the Detective Bureau at Police Headquarters, which was, perhaps, why he made such a good detective.

Mason jerked his head and said, "I think I've got something, Sidney."

"Okay," said Drumm, "be right with you."

Mason nodded and walked out into the corridor. Sidney Drumm joined him in about five minutes.

"Shoot," he said.

"I'm chasing down a witness in something that may be of value to you," Mason said to the detective. "I don't know yet just where it's going to lead. Right now, I'm working for a client, and I want to get the low down on a telephone number."

"What telephone number?"

"Freyburg 629803," said Mason. "If it's the party I think it is, he'll be as wise as a treeful of owls, and we can't pull any of this wrong number business on him. I think it's probably an unlisted number. You've got to get it right from the records of the telephone company, and I have an idea you'd better do it personally."

Drumm said: "Gee, guy, you've got a crust!"

Perry Mason looked hurt.

"I told you I was working for a client," he said, "there's twenty-five bucks in it for you. I thought you'd be willing to take a run down to the telephone company for twenty-five bucks."

Drumm grinned.

"Why the hell didn't you say so in the first place?" he said. "Wait till I get my hat. We go down in your car or in mine?"

"Better take both," Mason said. "You go in yours, and I'll go in mine. I may not be coming back this way."

"Okay," the detective said. "I'll meet you down there."

Mason went out, got in his machine, and drove to the main office of the telephone company. Drumm, in a police car, was there ahead of him.

"I got to figuring," said Drumm, "that it might be better if you didn't go up there with me when I got the dope. So I've been up and got it for you."

"What is it?"

"George C. Belter," Drumm told him. "And the address is 556 Elmwood. You were right about its being an unlisted number. It's supposed to be airtight. Information can't even give out the number, let alone any information about it. So forget where you got it."

"Sure," agreed Mason, pulling two tens and a five from his pocket.

Drumm's fingers closed over the money.

"Baby," he said, "these look good after that poker game I was in last night. Come around again some time when you've got another client like this one."

"I may have this client for some time," Mason observed.

"That'll be fine," Drumm said.

Mason got in his car. His face was grim as he stepped on the starter and sent the machine speeding out toward Elmwood Drive.

Elmwood Drive was in the more exclusive residential district of the city. Houses, set well back from the street, were fronted with bits of lawn, and the grounds were ornamented with well-kept hedges and trees. Mason slid his car to a stop before five hundred and fifty-six. It was a pretentious house, occupying the top of a small knoll. There were no other houses within some two hundred feet on either side, and the knoll had been landscaped to set off the magnificence of the house.

Mason didn't drive his car into the driveway, but parked it in the street, and went on foot to the front door. A light was burning on the porch. The evening was hot, and myriad insects clustered about the light, beating their wings against the big globe of frosted glass which surrounded the incandescent.

When he had rung the second time, the door was opened by a butler in livery. Perry Mason took one of his cards from his pocket, and handed it to the butler.

"Mr. Belter," he said, "wasn't expecting me, but he'll see me."

The butler glanced at the card, and stood to one side.

"Very good, sir. Will you come in, sir?"

Perry Mason walked into a reception room, and the butler indicated a chair. Mason could hear him climbing stairs. Then he heard voices from an upper floor, and the sound of the butler's feet coming down the stairs again.

The butler stepped into the room, and said: "I beg your pardon, but Mr. Belter doesn't seem to know you. Could you tell me what it was you wanted to see him about?"

Mason looked at the man's eyes, and said, shortly, "No."

The butler waited a moment, thinking that Mason might add to the comment, then, as nothing was said, turned and went back up the stairs. This time he was gone three or four minutes. When he returned, his face was wooden.

"Please step this way," he said. "Mr. Belter will see you."

Mason followed the man up the stairs and into a sitting room which was evidently one of a suite which opened from the hallway, taking up an entire wing of the house. The room was furnished with an eye to comfort and none for style. The chairs were massive and comfortable. No attempt had been made to follow any particular scheme of decoration, and the room radiated a masculinity which was untempered by feminine taste.

A door to an inner room swung open, and a big man stood on the threshold.

Perry Mason had a chance to look past this man, into the room from which he had emerged. It was a room fitted up as a study with book cases lining the walls, a massive desk and swivel chair in one corner, and, beyond that, a glimpse of a tiled bathroom.

The man stepped into the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

He was a huge bulk of a man with a face that was fat and pasty. There were puffs under his eyes. His chest was deep and his shoulders very broad. His hips were narrow, and Mason had the impression that the legs were probably thin. It was the eyes that commanded attention. They were hard as diamonds and utterly cold.

For a second or two the man stood near the door, staring at Mason. Then he walked forward, and his gait strengthened the impression that his legs were taxed to capacity to carry about the great weight of his torso.

Mason surmised that the man was somewhere in the late forties, and there was that in his manner which indicated he was completely cruel and ruthless in his dealings.

Standing, Mason was a good four inches shorter than this man, although his shoulders were as broad.

"Mr. Belter?" he asked.

The man nodded, planted his feet wide apart, and stared at Mason.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

Mason said, "I'm sorry to come to your house, but I wanted to talk over a matter of business."

"What about?"

"About a certain story that Spicy Bits threatens to publish. I don't want it published."

The diamond-hard eyes never so much as changed expression. They stared fixedly at Perry Mason.

"Why come here about it?" asked Belter.

"Because I think you're the one that I want to see."

"Well, I'm not."

"I think you are."

"I'm not. Don't know anything at all about Spicy Bits. I've read the sheet once in a while. It's a dirty, blackmailing rag, if you ask me."

Mason's eyes became hard. His body seemed to lean forward slightly from the hips.

"All right," he said. "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you."

"Telling me what?" Belter asked.

"Telling you that I'm an attorney, and I'm representing a client that Spicy Bits is trying to blackmail, and I don't like the set-up. I'm telling you that I don't intend to pay the price that's demanded, and I'm telling you further that I don't intend to pay a damned cent. I'm not going to buy any advertising in your sheet, and your sheet isn't going to publish the story about my client. Get that, and get it straight!"

Belter sneered. "It serves me right," he said, "for seeing the first shyster ambulance chaser that comes pounding at the door. I should have had the butler kick you out. You're either drunk or crazy. Or both. Personally, I have an idea it's both. Now are you going to get out, or shall I call the police?"

"I'll get out," Mason said, "when I finish what I was saying. You've kept in the background in this thing, and had Locke for your goat to stand out in front and take it. You've sat back and raked in the cash. You've received dividends out of blackmail. All right. Here's where you get an assessment."

Belter stood staring at Mason, saying nothing.

"I don't know whether you know who I am, or whether you know what I want," Mason went on, "but you can find out pretty quick by getting in touch with Locke. I'm telling you that if Spicy Bits publishes anything about my client, I'll rip off the mask of the man who owns the damned rag! Do you get that?"

"All right," Belter remarked. "You've made your threat. Now I'll make mine. I don't know who you are, and I don't give a damn. Maybe your reputation is sufficiently spotless so that you can afford to go around and make threats. Then again, maybe it isn't. Perhaps you'd better watch some of your own fences before you start throwing mud over other people's."

Mason nodded curtly. "Of course, I expected that," he said.

"Well," Belter said, "you won't be disappointed then. But don't think that's an admission that I'm mixed up with Spicy Bits. I don't know a damned thing about it. And I don't want to. Now get out!"

Mason turned and walked through the door.

The butler was on the threshold. He spoke to Belter.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but your wife wants very much to see you before she goes out, and she's just leaving."

Belter walked toward the door. "All right," he said. "Take a good look at this man, Digley. If you ever see him on the place again, throw him off. Call a cop if you have to."

Mason turned and stared at the butler.

"Better call two cops, Digley," he observed. "You might need 'em."

He walked down the stairs, conscious of the fact that the other two men were descending immediately behind him. As he reached the lower hallway, a woman glided out from a corner near the door.

"I hope I didn't interrupt you, George," she said, "but…"

Her eyes met those of Perry Mason.

She was the woman who had called on Mason at his office, and given the name of Eva Griffin.

Her face drained of color. The blue eyes became dark with sudden panic. Then, by an effort, she controlled the expression of her face, and the blue eyes enlarged to that wide-eyed stare of baby innocence which she had practiced when she had been in the office with Mason.

Mason's face showed nothing whatever. He stared at the woman with eyes that were perfectly calm and serene.

"Well?" asked Belter. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she said, and her voice sounded thin and frightened. "I just didn't know you were busy. I'm sorry I disturbed you."

Belter said, "Don't mind him. He's just a shyster who got in under false pretenses – and is leaving in a hurry."

Mason whirled on his heel.

"Listen, you," he said, "I'm going to tell you…"

The butler grabbed his arm. "This way, sir," he said.

Mason's powerful shoulders swung in a pivot that was like the swing of a golf professional. The butler was hurled across the hallway and slammed against the wall with force that jarred the pictures on their hangings. Perry Mason strode directly to the massive form of George Belter.

"I decided to give you a break," he said, "and now I've changed my mind. You publish a word about my client, or about me in your sheet, and you'll go to jail for the next twenty years. D'you hear?"

The diamond-hard eyes stared at him with the uncordial glitter of a snake's eyes staring into the face of a man armed with a club. George Belter's right hand was in his coat pocket.

"It's a good thing," he said, "that you stopped right when you did. Make a move to lay a hand on me, and I'll blow your heart out! I've got witnesses to show it's self-defense, and I don't know but what it would be a good thing to do anyway."

"Don't bother," Mason said, evenly, "you can't stop me that way. There are others who know what I know, and know where I am and why."

Belter's lip curled.

"The trouble with you is," he said, "that you keep singing the same tune. You've already played that game for all that it's worth. If you think that I'm afraid of anything that a cheap, blackmailing ambulance chaser can try to pin on me, you're mistaken. I'm telling you to get out, for the last time!"

Mason turned on his heel. "All right. I'm getting out. I've said all I've got to say."

George Belter's sarcastic comment reached his ears as he gained the door.