17- The Case of the Silent Partner by Erle Stanley Gardner

Author:Erle Stanley Gardner [Gardner, Erle Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-02-19T10:04:02+00:00

Chapter 10

Della Street, moving with the swift rapidity of one who is accustomed to accomplishment, stepped into the outer office to instruct the receptionist. Perry Mason, standing by his desk, hat and coat on, was scooping legal papers into the brief case which he intended to take with him.

Suddenly the door from the outer office was pushed open. Della entered Mason’s office, jerked off her hat, tossed it to the shelf above the washstand in the closet, opened her locker, took out a comb and brush and started changing her hair.

With bobby pins held in her mouth so that her words sounded jumbled, she said, “He’s there… Only seen me with my hat on just for a minute…. Gertie looked to me when he asked for you… said he had to see you right away… claims he can’t wait … I’ll change my appearance as much as I can…. Wouldn’t do for me to skip out now.”

Mason watched her brush the curls out of her hair, make a part in the middle, slick her hair down on each side. Her fingertips dipped into water from the open tap, smoothing out the curled ends.

“Lieutenant Tragg.”

She nodded, her mouth bristling with bobby pins.

Slowly, Mason took off his coat, hung it up, carefully placed his hat on a hook just behind Della, said, “He won’t wait.”

“I know it,” she muttered. “Told him you had a client but would be free in two or three minutes.”

Mason opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out the papers from his brief case, dropped them into the drawer, closed it, and kicked the brief case back into the foot-well under the desk.

134 The Case of the Silent Partner

The Case of the Silent Partner I 135

Della swept the last of the bobby pins from her lips, looked at herself appraisingly.

“Let’s go,” Mason said.

Wordlessly, she vanished into the outer office, returning with Lieutenant Tragg in tow.

“Hello, Lieutenant,” Mason said casually.

Tragg wasted no time in preliminaries. “Mason,” he said, “I hand it to you.”

“To me?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“You caught me napping. The thing impressed me at the time. I guess it stuck in my subconscious, but I was too preoccupied to notice it. You drew a red herring across the trail and I went barking off on a false scent.”

Mason said, “Sit down, Lieutenant. Have a cigarette. My secretary. Miss Street.”

“How do you do. Miss Street.” Tragg took a cigarette, sat down in the big armchair, accepted Mason’s match, and seemed somewhat embarrassed.

“I don’t get you,” Mason said.

“Last night while I was all hot and bothered about that gun Mildreth Faulkner had, and about the way she’d managed to pull the trigger so that a paraffin test wouldn’t give me any results which couldn’t be explained, you went out to your car. You’re a damn good driver, Mason, but when you turned around, you clashed gears, raced the motor, backed and twisted.”

“I must have been excited.”

“Yes. Crazy like a fox. Any time Perry Mason gets so excited he fumbles the ball, it’s a long, cold day.

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