The Case of the Nervous Accomplice: A Perry Mason Mystery by Erle Stanley Gardner

Author:Erle Stanley Gardner
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Detective, Mytery, Suspense, Crime
ISBN: 9781842320860
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2010-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Perry Mason pushed down on the foot throttle, sending his car whining up the steep grade. He brought it to a stop in front of the big three-storied house.

“You sit here, Della,” he said. “Shut the motor off. I’ll fire two shots. Press the horn button once if you hear one shot, twice if you hear two shots.

“After that, turn on the radio. I’ll fire two more shots. Give me the same signal.” Della Street nodded.

Mason took a skeleton key from his pocket. “Will the police frown on this procedure?” Della Street asked.

“What procedure?”

“The breaking and entry part, the skeleton key.” Mason grinned. “I’m a stockholder in the company that owns the building. Even Hamilton Burger can’t find a loophole in that.”

“The police have finished searching the place?”

“Yes. They’ve been over it with a fine-toothed comb. They found one other bullet.”

“They did? When?”

“Late last night. It was embedded in the wall on the south side and had been fired from the fatal gun.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t know it myself until this morning.”

“Then there’s only one other bullet to be accounted for?”

“Yes. The two bullets from the Peters’ shells have now been found. The U.M.C. bullet is missing.”

“Those are blank cartridges you’re using?”

“That’s right.”

“Do they make the same amount of noise as the ones with bullets?”

“I hope so,” Mason said. “I don’t dare to shoot any bullets to find out. We’ll make a reasonable test.”

“What do you want to prove?”

“Whether my client is lying.”

“If she isn’t?”

“So much the better.”

“And if she is?”

“She’s still my client,” Mason said, and fitted his skeleton key to the lock in the door.

Mason climbed the first flight of stairs, looked around at the gloomy rooms, inhaled the musty air, then started up the second flight, paused midway up the flight to inspect the reddish-brown stain which had soaked into the wood, marking the place where the body of George C. Lutts had been resting when discovered by his startled son-in-law.

He climbed to the third floor, looked out of the window down the steep slope to the place where Roxy Clafhn’s house gleamed in the sunlight, a vision of white stucco, red-tiled roof, blue-tiled swimming pool, walled patio, green shrubbery and velvet lawns, the well-kept luxury of the place standing in sharp contrast to the contractor’s unpainted board shack at the foot of the grade where the raw earth had been ripped away.

Mason stood with his back to the window. He raised a thirty-eight caliber revolver and pulled the trigger twice. The echoes of the explosion died away. From down below came the blast of an automobile horn. A second later there was another blast.

Mason waited for a full minute, then raised the gun and fired two more shots. This time there was no sound of the automobile horn.

Mason pushed the gun back in his pocket and descended the stairs.

“Okay?” Della Street asked.

“Okay,” he said. “How plainly did you hear them?”

“I heard the two plainly. After that, nothing.”

“Were you trying to listen for the second

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