The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner

Author:Erle Stanley Gardner [Gardner, Erle Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Classics, Mytery, Crime, Detective, Suspense
ISBN: 9780884114017
Google: cIw_PgAACAAJ
Amazon: B005QE7XPK
Goodreads: 1795039
Publisher: Readers Digest
Published: 1933-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12.

The first rays of the early morning sun were gilding the tops of the buildings, when Perry Mason got hold of Harrison Burke's housekeeper.

She was fifty-seven or eight years old, heavily fleshed, filled with animosity. Her eyes were sparkling with hostility.

"I don't care who you are," she said, truculently. "I tell you that he isn't here. I don't know where he is. He was out until around midnight, then he got a telephone call, and went out again. After that, the telephone kept ringing all night. I didn't answer it, because I knew he wasn't here, and my feet get cold when I get up in the middle of the night. And I don't appreciate being called out of bed at this hour, either!"

"How long after he came in before there was a telephone call?" asked Mason.

"It wasn't very long, if it's really any of your business."

"Do you think he was expecting the telephone call?"

"How do I know? He woke me up when he came in. I heard him open the door and close it. I was trying to go to sleep again when I heard the telephone ring, and heard him talk. Then I heard him run up to his bedroom. I thought he was going to bed, but I guess he was putting some things in a suitcase, because this morning the suitcase is gone. I heard him run down the stairs and slam the front door."

Perry Mason said, "Well, I guess that's all, then."

She said, "You bet it's all!" and slammed the door.

Mason got in his car, and stopped at a hotel to call his office.

When he heard Della Street's voice on the line, he said, "Is Mr. Mason there?"

"No, he isn't," she said. "Who's calling?"

"This is a friend of his," he told her, "Mr. Fred B. Johnson. I wanted to get in touch with Mr. Mason very badly."

"I can't tell you where he is," she said rapidly, "but I expect he'll be in soon. There are several people looking for him, and one of them, a Mr. Paul Drake, I think has an appointment. So I think he'll be in soon."

"Well, that's all right," Mason remarked, casually. "I'll call again."

"You haven't any message to leave with me?" she asked.

"Nothing," he told her, "except that I'll call again," and he hung up.

He called back the number of Drake's Detective Bureau and got Paul Drake on the telephone.

"Don't make any cracks where anybody can hear you, Paul," said Mason, "because I have an idea a lot of people would like to ask me some questions that I'd rather not answer right now. You know who this is."

"Yeah," replied Drake, "I got some funny dope for you."

"Shoot," said Mason.

"I went out to this chap's house. The one on West Sixty-ninth Street, and I found something funny."

"Go on," Mason told him.

"This bird got a telephone call from somebody a little after midnight, and told his wife that he was called out of town on important business. He seemed pretty much frightened.

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