The Case of the Velvet Claws pm-1 Read online

  The Case of the Velvet Claws

  ( Perry Mason - 1 )

  Erle Stanley Gardner

  Thanks to a bungled robbery at a fancy hotel, the already-married Eva Griffin has been caught in the company of a prominent congressman. To protect the politico, Eva’s ready to pay the editor of a sleazy tabloid his hush money. But Perry Mason has other plans. He tracks down the phantom fat cat who secretly runs the blackmailing tabloid—only to discover a shocking scoop.

  By the time Mason’s comely client finally comes clean, her husband has taken a bullet in the heart. Now Perry Mason has two choices: represent the cunning widow in her wrangle for the dead man’s money—or take the rap for murder.

  The Case of the Velvet Claws

  by Erle Stanley Gardner

  Cast of Characters

  in the order of their appearance

  Perry Mason–fighting attorney, who preferred being paid off as a sheep to being double-crossed like a lamb.

  Della Street–who was a faithful Girl Friday (also Sunday and Monday, if not quite always).

  Eva Griffin–well groomed and well heeled, who was a phony.

  Harrison Burke–Congressman, whose Duty to the People was to keep them from knowing he was mixed up in murder.

  Frank Locke–editor of Spicy Bits, who was Southern, but not gentleman.

  Paul Drake–who turned up some interesting information on Georgia peaches and sons of same.

  Sidney Drumm–who put himself out on a limb of the tree Perry Mason was up.

  George C. Belter–who got his money by blackmail, and who—naturally—got his.

  Mrs. Belter–a woman who had a will of her own and put a velvet clause in it.

  Carl Griffin–nephew of George Belter, and a gentleman around and around and around the town.

  Bill Hoffman–head of Homicide, who wanted the sleuth, the whole sleuth, and little else.

  Mrs. Veitch–the housekeeper, who was silent as the tomb and looked like a mummy.

  Norma Veitch–a girl with matrimonies on her mind.

  Esther Linten–who made up for losing her beauty sleep by deciding to pass out the night before.

  Sol Steinburg–who excelled at histrionics.

  Arthur Atwood–who found himself vulnerable on Mrs. Belter’s tricks.

  Harry Loring–who wasn’t sure whether he had too many wives or none.

  Chapter 1

  Autumn sun beat against the window.

  Perry Mason sat at the big desk. There was about him the attitude of one who is waiting. His face in repose was like the face of a chess player who is studying the board. That face seldom changed expression. Only the eyes changed expression. He gave the impression of being a thinker and a fighter, a man who could work with infinite patience to jockey an adversary into just the right position, and then finish him with one terrific punch.

  Book cases, filled with leather-backed books, lined the walls of the room. A big safe was in one corner. There were two chairs, in addition to the swivel chair which Perry Mason occupied. The office held an atmosphere of plain, rugged efficiency, as though it had absorbed something of the personality of the man who occupied it.

  The door to the outer office opened, and Della Street, his secretary, eased her way into the room and closed the door behind her.

  “A woman,” she said, “who claims to be a Mrs. Eva Griffin.” Perry Mason looked at the girl with level eyes.

  “And you don’t think she is?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “She looks phony to me,” she said. “I’ve looked up the Griffins in the telephone book. And there isn’t any Griffin who has an address like the one she gave. I looked in the City Directory, and got the same result. There are a lot of Griffins, but I don’t find any Eva Griffin. And I don’t find any at her address.”

  “What was the address?” asked Mason.

  “2271 Grove Street,” she said.

  Perry Mason made a notation on a slip of paper.

  “I’ll see her,” he said.

  “Okay,” said Della Street. “I just wanted you to know that she looks phony to me.”

  Della Street was slim of figure, steady of eye; a young woman of approximately twenty-seven, who gave the impression of watching life with keenly appreciative eyes and seeing far below the surface.

  She remained standing in the doorway eyeing Perry Mason with quiet insistence. “I wish,” she said, “that you’d find out who she really is before we do anything for her.”

  “A hunch?” asked Perry Mason.

  “You might call it that,” she said, smiling.

  Perry Mason nodded. His face had not changed expression. Only his eyes had become warily watchful.

  “All right, send her in, and I’ll take a look at her myself.”

  Della Street closed the door as she went out, keeping a hand on the knob, however. Within a few seconds, the knob turned the door opened, and a woman walked into the room with an air of easy assurance.

  She was in her early thirties, or perhaps, her late twenties—well groomed, and giving an appearance of being exceedingly well cared for. She flashed a swiftly appraising glance about the office before she looked at the man seated behind the desk.

  “Come in and sit down,” said Perry Mason.

  She looked at him then, and there was a faint expression of annoyance upon her face. It was as though she expected men to get up when she came into the room, and to treat her with a deferential recognition of her sex and her position.

  For just a moment she seemed inclined to ignore his invitation. Then she walked to the chair across from the desk sat down in it, and looked at Perry Mason.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “You’re Mr. Mason, the attorney?”

  “Yes.”

  The blue eyes which had been looking at him in cautious appraisal, suddenly widened as though by an effort. They gave to her face an expression of utter innocence.

  “I am in trouble,” she said.

  Perry Mason nodded as though the news meant nothing to him, other than a matter of daily routine.

  When she didn’t go on, he said: “Most people who come in here are—”

  The woman said, abruptly: “You don’t make it easy for me to tell you about it. Most of the attorneys I have consulted…”

  She was suddenly silent.

  Perry Mason smiled at her. Slowly he got to his feet, put his hands on the edge of the desk and leaned his weight on them so that his body was leaning toward her across the desk. “Yes,” he said, “I know. Most of the attorneys that you’ve consulted have had expensive suites of offices and a lot of clerks running in and out. You’ve paid them big money and haven’t had anything much to show for it. They’ve bowed and scraped when you came in the room, and charged you big retainers. But when you get in a real jam you don’t dare to go to them.”

  Her wide eyes narrowed somewhat. For two or three seconds they stared at each other, and then the woman lowered her eyes.

  Perry Mason continued to speak, slowly and forcefully, yet without raising his voice.

  “All right,” he said, “I’m different. I get my business because I fight for it, and because I fight for my clients. Nobody ever called on me to organize a corporation, and I’ve never yet probated an estate. I haven’t drawn up over a dozen contracts in my life, and I wouldn’t know how to go about foreclosing a mortgage. People that come to me don’t come to me because they like the looks of my eyes, or the way my office is furnished, or because they’ve known me at a club. They come to me because they need me. They come to me because they want to hire me for what I can do.”

  She looked up at him then. “Just what is it that
you do, Mr Mason?” she asked.

  He snapped out two words at her. “I fight!”

  She nodded vigorously. “That’s exactly what I want you to do for me.”

  He sat down again in his swivel chair, and lit a cigarette. The atmosphere seemed to have been cleared as though the two personalities had created an electrical storm which had subsided. “All right,” he said. “Now we’ve wasted enough time with preliminaries. Get down to earth, and tell me what it is you want. Tell me first who you are and how you happened to come to me. Maybe it’ll make it easier for you if you start in that way.”

  She began to speak rapidly, as though she had rehearsed what she was saying.

  “I am married. My name is Eva Griffin, and I reside at 2271 Grove Street. I have trouble that I can’t very well discuss with the attorneys who have heretofore represented me. A friend who asked her name withheld, told me about you. She said that you were more than a lawyer. That you went out and did things.”

  She was silent for a moment, and then asked: “Is it true?”

  Perry Mason nodded his head.

  “I suppose so,” he said. “Most attorneys hire clerks and detectives to work up their cases, and find out about the evidence. I don’t, for the simple reason that I can’t trust any one to do that sort of stuff in the kind of cases I handle. I don’t handle very many, but when I do I’m well paid, and I usually give good results. When I hire a detective, he’s hired to get just one fact.”

  She nodded quickly and eagerly. Now that the ice was broken, she seemed eager to go on with her story.

  “You read in the paper about the hold-up at the Beechwood Inn last night? There were some guests, you know, in the main dining room, and some in the private dining rooms. A man tried to hold up the guests, and somebody shot him.”

  Perry Mason nodded. “I read about it,” he said.

  “I was there.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Know anything about who did the shooting?”

  She lowered her eyes for a moment, and then raised them to his. “No,” she said.

  He looked at her, narrowed his eyes and scowled.

  She met the stare for a second or two, then lowered her eyes.

  Perry Mason continued to wait as though she had not answered his question.

  After a moment she raised her eyes once more, and fidgeted uneasily in the chair. “Well,” she said, “if you’re going to be my attorney, I should tell you the truth. Yes.”

  Mason’s nod seemed more of satisfaction than affirmation.

  “Go on,” he told her.

  “We tried to get out, and couldn’t. The entrances were all watched. It seems somebody had put through a call to the police department before the shooting, just when the hold-up started. Before we could get out, the police had the place sewed up.”

  “Who is ‘we’?” he asked.

  She studied the tip of her shoe, then said in a mumbled voice: “Harrison Burke.”

  Perry Mason said, slowly: “You mean Harrison Burke, the one who’s candidate for…”

  “Yes,” she snapped, as though she would interrupt him before he could say anything concerning Harrison Burke.

  “What were you doing there with him?”

  “Dining and dancing.”

  “Well?” he inquired.

  “Well,” she said, “we went back into the private dining room, and kept out of sight until the officers started taking the names of the witnesses. The sergeant in charge was a friend of Harrison’s, and he knew that it would be fatal for the newspapers to get hold of the fact that we were there. So he let us stay on in the dining room until after everything was finished, and then he smuggled us out of the back door.”

  “Anybody see you?” asked Mason.

  She shook her head. “Nobody that I know.”

  “All right,” he said, “go on from there.”

  She looked up at him and said, abruptly: “Do you know Frank Locke?”

  He nodded his head. “You mean the one that edits Spicy Bits?”

  She clamped her lips together in a firm line, and nodded her head in silent assent.

  “What about him?” asked Perry Mason.

  “He knows about it,” she said.

  “Going to publish it?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  Perry Mason fingered a paper weight on his desk. His hand was well formed, long and tapering, yet the fingers seemed filled with competent strength. It seemed the hand could have a grip of crushing force should the occasion require.

  “You can buy him off,” he said.

  “No,” she said, “I can’t. You’ve got to.”

  “Why can’t Harrison Burke?” he asked.

  “Don’t you understand?” she said. “Harrison Burke might explain his having been at the Beechwood Inn with a married woman. But he could never explain paying hush money to silence a scandal sheet from publishing the fact. He’s got to keep out of this. They may trap him.”

  Perry Mason drummed with his fingers on the top of the desk.

  “And you want me to square the thing?” he asked.

  “I want you to square it.”

  “How high would you pay?”

  She rushed on in swift conversation now, leaning toward him and talking rapidly.

  “Listen,” she said, “I’m going to tell you something. Remember what it is, but don’t ask me how I happened to know. I don’t think you can buy Frank Locke off. You’ve got to go higher. Frank Locke pretends to own Spicy Bits. You know the kind of a publication it is. It’s just a blackmailing sheet, and that’s all it’s for. They are in the market for all they can get. But Frank Locke is only a figurehead. There’s somebody behind him. Somebody who is higher. Somebody who really owns the paper. They’ve got a good attorney who tries to keep them clear of blackmailing charges and libel suits. But in case anything ever went wrong, Frank Locke is there to take all the blame.”

  She quit talking.

  There was a moment or two of silence.

  “I’m listening,” said Perry Mason.

  She bit her lip for a moment, then raised her eyes once more, and continued speaking in the same rapid tone. “They’ve found out about Harrison being there. They don’t know who the woman was that was with him. But they’re going to publish the fact that he was there, and demand that the police bring him in as a witness. There’s some mystery about the shooting. It looks as though some one had trapped this man into a hold-up so that he could be shot, without too many questions being asked. The police and the District Attorney are going to grill every one who was there.”

  “And they’re not going to grill you?” asked Perry Mason.

  She shook her head. “No, they’re going to leave us out of it. Nobody knows I was there. The officer knows Harrison was there. That’s all. I gave him an assumed name.”

  “Well?” asked Mason.

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “If they put pressure to bear on the officers, they’ll have to question Harrison. And then he’ll have to tell them who the woman was that was with him. Or else it will appear worse than it really was. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t anything wrong with it. We had a right to be there.”

  He drummed with his fingers on his desk for a few moments, and then looked at her steadily.

  “All right,” he said, “let’s not have any misunderstanding about this. You’re trying to save Harrison Burke’s political career?”

  She looked at him meaningly.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want any misunderstanding about it. I’m trying to save myself.”

  He continued to drum with his fingertips for a few minutes, and then said: “It’s going to take money.”

  She opened her handbag. “I came prepared for that.”

  Perry Mason watched her while she counted out the currency, and arranged it in piles along the edge of the desk.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “That’s on account of your fee,” she said. “When you find out how much i
t’s going to take to keep the thing secret, you can get in touch with me.”

  “How do I get in touch with you?”

  “You put a personal in the Examiner: ‘E. G. Negotiations ready to conclude,’ and you sign that with your initials. Then I’ll come to your office.”

  “I don’t like it,” he said. “I never like to pay blackmail. I’d rather work some other way around it.”

  “What other way would there be?” she asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Sometimes there are other ways.”

  She said, hopefully: “I can tell you one thing about Frank Locke. There’s something in his past life that he’s afraid of. I don’t know exactly what it is. I think perhaps he was sent to prison once, or something of that sort.”

  He looked at her.

  “You seem to know him pretty well.”

  She shook her head. “I never saw him in my life.”

  “How do you know so much about him?”

  “I told you you weren’t to ask me that.”

  He drummed again with his powerful fingers on the edge of the desk.

  “Can I say that I am representing Harrison Burke?” he asked.

  She shook her head emphatically.

  “You can’t say that you’re representing anybody. That is, you can’t use any names. You know how to handle that. I don’t.”

  “When do you want me to start in?”

  “Right away.”

  Perry Mason pressed a button on the side of his desk. After a moment or two, the door to the outer office opened and Della Street came in carrying a notebook.

  The woman in the chair sat back with a detached, impersonal air; the manner of one whose business is not to be discussed in any way before servants.

  “You wanted something?” asked Della Street.

  Perry Mason reached in the upper right-hand drawer of his desk, and took out a letter.

  “This letter,” he said, “is all right, with the exception of one thing that I want in it. I’ll write that in in pen and ink. And then you can re-type the letter. I’m going to be out on important business for the rest of the day. And I don’t know just when I’ll be back to the office.”