The Case of the Velvet Claws (5 page)

"At least twice," said Belter. "Some of it you've said three times."

Perry Mason sat behind the desk with his coat off, and watched her with wary eyes and an entire absence of sympathy.

"You shouldn't have done it," she said, between sniffs.

"How was I supposed to know that?" asked Perry Mason.

"He's utterly ruthless," she said.

Mason nodded his head.

"I'm pretty ruthless myself," he observed.

"Why didn't you put the ad in the Examiner?"

"They wanted too much money. They seemed to think I was going to play Santy Claus."

"They knew it was important," she wailed. "There's a lot at stake."

Mason said nothing.

The woman sobbed silently for a moment, then raised her eyes, and stared in mute anguish at Perry Mason.

"You should never have threatened him," she said. "You should never have come to the house. You can't do anything with him by threats. Whenever he gets in a corner, he always fights his way out. He never asks for quarter, and he never gives any."

"Well, what's he going to do about it?" asked Mason.

"He'll ruin you," she sobbed. "He'll find every lawsuit that you've got, and accuse you of jury bribing, of suborning perjury, and of unprofessional conduct. He'll hound you out of the city."

"The minute he puts anything about me in his paper," said Mason, grimly, "I'll sue him for libel, and I'll keep on bringing a suit every time he mentions my name."

She shook her head with tears on her cheeks.

"You can't do that," she said, "He's too smart. He's got lawyers who tell him just what he can do, and just what he can't do. He'll get around behind your back, and frighten the judges who are sitting on your cases. He'll make the judges give adverse decisions. He'll keep under cover and fight you at every turn of the road."

Perry Mason drummed on the edge of his desk. "Baloney," he said.

"Oh, why," she wailed, "did you come out there? Why didn't you simply put an ad in the paper?"

Mason got to his feet.

"Now look here," he said. "I've heard enough of this. I went out there because I thought it was good business to go out there. That damned paper tried to hold me up, and I won't be held up by anybody. Your husband may be ruthless, but I'm pretty ruthless myself. I've never asked for quarter yet. And I won't give any."

He paused to stare down at her accusingly. "If you'd been frank with me when you came in here this thing wouldn't have happened. You had to go and lie about the whole business, and that's the thing that's responsible for the present mess. It rests on your shoulders, not on mine."

"Don't be cross with me, Mr. Mason," she pleaded. "You're all I've got to depend on now. It's an awful mess, and you've got to see me through."

He sat down once more and said, "Don't lie to me then."

She looked down at her knees, adjusted the hem of her dress over her stocking, and plaited little folds in the garment with the tips of her gloved fingers.

"What shall we do?" she asked.

"One of the first things we'll do," he said, "is to begin at the beginning, and come clean."

"But you know all there is to know."

"All right then," said Mason, "tell me what I know, so that I can check up."

She frowned. "I don't understand."

"Go ahead," said Mason, "spill it. Tell me the whole business."

Her voice was thin and helpless. She continued to fold the cloth of the skirt over the top of her crossed legs. She did not look at him as she talked.

"Nobody," she said, "ever knew George Belter's connection with Spicy Bits. He kept it so much under cover that nobody ever suspected. Nobody at the office knew, except Frank Locke. And George could control Locke. He's got something terrible on him. I don't know just what it is. Maybe it's a murder.

"Anyway, none of our friends have ever suspected. They all think that George makes his money out of playing the stock market. I married George Belter seven months ago. I am his second wife. I guess I was fascinated by him and his money, but we've never got along well together. The last two months our relations have been strained. I was going to sue him for divorce. I think he knew it."

She paused to stare at Perry Mason, and saw no sympathy in his eyes.

"I was friendly with Harrison Burke," she went on. "I met him about two months ago. It was just a friendship. Nothing more. We were out together, and that murder took place. Of course, if Harrison Burke had to divulge my name, it would have ruined his career politically, because George would have sued me and named him as correspondent right away. I simply had to hush it up."

"Maybe your husband would never have found out," suggested Mason. "The District Attorney is a gentleman. Burke could have disclosed the facts to the District Attorney, and the District Attorney wouldn't have called you unless you had seen something that made your testimony absolutely necessary."

"You don't understand how they work," she told him. "I don't know all of it myself. But they've got spies everywhere. They buy pieces of information and run down odds and ends of gossip. Whenever a man gets prominent enough to attract attention, they go to a lot of trouble to get all the information they can about him. Harrison Burke is prominent politically, and he's coming up for re-election. They don't like him, and Burke knows it. I heard my husband telephoning to Frank Locke, and I knew that they were on the trail of the information. That was why I came to you. I wanted to buy them off before they had any idea of who it was that was with him."

"If your friendship with Burke was innocent," said Mason, "why don't you go to your husband and tell him what the situation is? After all, he'd be dragging his own name through the dust."

She shook her head, vehemently.

"You don't know anything at all about it," she warned. "You simply don't understand my husband's character. You showed that in the way you handled him last night. He's savage and heartless. He's a fighter. What's more, he is money-mad. He knows that if I bring suit for divorce, I will probably get some alimony and a lot of money for attorneys' fees, and suit money. All that he wants is to get something on me. If he could get something on me, and at the same time drag Harrison Burke's name through the courts, it would be a wonderful break for him."

Perry Mason frowned thoughtfully. "There's something funny about that high price they fixed," he remarked. "It seems to me that it's too high for political blackmail. Do you suppose that your husband or Frank Locke suspects who it is they're after?"

"No," she said firmly.

There was a moment of silence.

"Well," said Mason, "what do we do? Do we pay their price?"

"There won't be any price any more. George will call off all negotiations. He'll go ahead and fight. He figures that he can't afford to give in to you. If he does, he thinks that you'll hound him to death. That's the way he is, and that's the way he thinks everybody else is. He simply can't give in to anybody It isn't in his nature, that's all."

Mason nodded, grimly. "All right, if he wants to fight, I'm perfectly willing to go to the mat with him. One of the first things I'll do will be to file suit against Spicy Bits the first time they mention my name, and I'll take the deposition of Frank Locke and force him to disclose who actually owns that paper. Or else I'll have him prosecuted for perjury. There are a lot of people who would like to see that sheet put where it belongs."

"Oh, you don't understand," she told him, speaking rapidly. "You don't understand the way they fight. You don't understand George. It would take a long while for you to get a libel suit to trial. He'll work fast. And then, you've got to remember that I'm your client. I'm the one you're supposed to protect. Long before any of that happens, I'll be ruined. They'll go after that Harrison Burke business hammer and tongs now."

Mason drummed on his desk again, and then said, "Look here. You've hinted at some information your husband has that holds Frank Locke in line. Now I have an idea that you know what that information is. Suppose you give it to me, and I'll see if I can't crack a whip over Frank Locke."

Her face was white as she looked at him.

"Do you know what you're saying?" she said. "Do you know what you are doing? Do you know what you're getting into? They'll kill you! It wouldn't be the first time. They've got affiliations in the underworld with gangsters and gunmen."

Mason held her eyes with his.

"What," he insisted, "do you know about Frank Locke?"

She shuddered and dropped her eyes. After an interval, she said, in a tired tone: "Nothing."

Mason said, impatiently: "Every time you come here you lie to me. You're one of those baby-faced little liars that always gets by by deceit. Just because you're beautiful, you've managed to get by with it. You've deceived every man that ever loved you, every man you ever loved. Now you're in trouble, and you're deceiving me."

She stared at him with blazing indignation, either natural or assumed.

"You've no right to talk to me that way!"

"The hell I haven't," said Mason, grimly.

They stared at each other for a second or two.

"It was something down South," she said, meekly.

"What was?"

"The trouble that Locke got into. I don't know what it was. I don't know where it was. I only know it was some trouble, and that it was down South somewhere. It was some trouble over a woman. That is, that's the way it started. I don't know how it finished. It may have been a murder. I don't know. I know it's something, and I know it's something that George holds over him all the time. That's the only way George ever deals with anybody. He gets something on them and holds it over them, and makes them do just as he wants."

Mason stared at her, and said, "That's the way he handles you."

"That's the way he tries to."

"Was that the way he made you marry him?" asked Mason.

"I don't know," she said. "No."

He laughed grimly.

"Well," she said, "what difference does it make?"

"Maybe not any. Maybe a lot. I want some more money." She opened her purse.

"I haven't got much more," she said. "I can give you three hundred dollars."

Mason shook his head.

"You've got a checking account," he said. "I've got to have more money. I'm going to have some expenses in this thing. I'm fighting for myself now as well as for you."

"I can't give you a check. I don't have any checking account. He won't let me. That's another way that he keeps people under his control, through money. I have to get money from him in cash, or get it some other way."

"What other way?" asked Mason.

She said nothing. She drew out a roll of bills from the purse. "There's five hundred dollars here, and it's every cent I've got."

"All right," said Mason. "Keep twenty-five and give me the rest."

He pressed a button in the side of the desk. The door to the outer office framed the inquiring features of Della Street.

"Make another receipt," said Mason, "to this woman. Make it the same way you made the other one, with reference to a ledger page. This is for four hundred and seventy-five dollars, and it's on account."

Eva Belter passed the money over to Mason. He took it and gave it to Della Street.

The two women maintained toward each other that air of aloof hostility which characterizes two dogs walking stiff-legged, one around the other.

Della Street held her chin high, as she took the money, and returned to the outer office.

"She'll give you a receipt," said Perry Mason, "as you go out. How about getting in touch with you?"

She said, quickly enough: "That's all right. Ring the house. Ask for my maid and tell her that you're the cleaner. Tell her you can't find the dress I inquired about. I'll explain to her, and she'll pass the message on to me. Then I'll call you."

Mason laughed.

"You've got that down pat," he said. "You must have used it often."

She looked up at him, and her blue eyes set in a wide stare of tearful innocence.

"I'm sure," she said, "I don't know what you mean."

Mason pushed back his swivel chair, got to his feet, and walked around the desk.

"In the future," he told her, "you can save yourself the trouble of putting on that baby stare with me if you want to. I think we understand each other pretty well. You're in a jam and I'm trying to get you out."

She got to her feet slowly, looked into his eyes, and suddenly put her hands on his shoulders.

"Somehow," she said, "you inspire me with confidence. You're the only man I ever knew who could stand up to my husband. I feel as though I could cling to you and you'd protect me."

She tilted back her face so that her lips were close to his, and her eyes were staring into his. Her body was quite close to his.

He took her elbow in his long, strong fingers and turned her away from him.

"I'll protect you," he said, "just as long as you pay cash."