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A key sounded in the door,and Della Street walked in.
“Morning, chief,” she said. “You sure do keep hours!”
He beckoned to her to come in and sit down. “This,” he said, “is the start of a busy day.”
“What is it?” she asked, looking at him with troubled eyes.
“Murder.”
“We’re just representing a client?” she inquired.
“I don’t know. We may be mixed up in it.”
“Mixed up in it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s that woman,” she said savagely.
He shook his head impatiently. “I wish you’d get over those ideas, Della.”
“That’s right just the same,” she persisted. “I knew there was something about her. I knew there was trouble that was going to follow that woman around. I never did trust her.”
“Okay,” Mason said wearily. “Now forget that, and get your instructions. I don’t know what’s going to happen here, and you may have to carry on if anything happens that I can’t keep the ball rolling.”
“What do you mean,” she asked, “that you can’t?”
“Never mind about that.”
“But I do mind,” she said, eyes wide with apprehension. “You’re in danger.”
He ignored the remark. “This woman came to us as Eva Griffin. I tried to follow her, and couldn’t make it stick. Later on, I started a fight with Spicy Bits, and tried to find out who was really back of the sheet. It turned out to be a man named Belter who lived out on Elmwood Drive. You’ll read about the place and the chap in the morning papers. I went out to see Belter and found he was a tough customer. While I was there, I ran into his wife. And she was none other than our client. Her real name is Eva Belter.”
“What was she trying to do?” asked Della Street. “Double-cross you?”
“No,” said Mason. “She was in a jam. She’d been places with a man, and her husband was on her back trail. He didn’t know who the woman was. It was the man he was after. But he was exposing the man through the scandal sheet, and eventually the identity of the woman would have come out.”
“Who is this man?” asked Della Street.
“Harrison Burke,” he said, slowly.
She arched her eyebrows and was silent.
Mason lit a cigarette.
“What does Harrison Burke have to say about it?” she asked after a little while.
Perry Mason made a gesture with his hands.
“He was the guy that kicked through with the money in the envelope; the coin that came into the office this afternoon by messenger.”
“Oh.”
There was silence for a minute or two. Both were thinking.
“Well,” she said at length, “go on. What am I going to read about in the papers tomorrow?”
He spoke in a monotone. “I went to bed, and Eva Belter called me sometime after midnight. Around twelve thirty, I guess it was. It was raining to beat the band. She wanted me to come out and pick her up at a drug store. She said she was in trouble. I went out, and she told me that some man had been having an argument with her husband and shot him.”
“Did she know the man?” Della Street inquired softly.
“No,” said Mason, “she didn’t. She didn’t see him. She only heard his voice.”
“Did she know the voice?”
“She thought she did.”
“Who did she think it was?”
“Me.”
The girl looked at him steadily, her eyes not changing their expression in the least.
“Was it?”
“No. I was at home, in bed.”
“Can you prove it?” she asked, tonelessly.
“Good Lord,” he said, impatiently. “I don’t take an alibi to bed with me!”
“The lousy little double-crosser!” More calmly she asked, “Then what happened?”
“We went out there, and found her husband dead. A 32-Colt automatic. I got the number of it. One shot, right through the heart. He’d been taking a bath, and somebody shot him.”
Della Street’s eyes widened. “Then she got you out there before she notified the police?”
“Exactly,” said Mason. “The police don’t like that.”
The girl’s face was white. She sucked in her breath to say something, but thought better of it and remained silent.
Perry Mason went on, in his same monotone: “I had a run-in with Sergeant Hoffman. There’s a nephew out there that I don’t like. He’s too much of a gentleman. The housekeeper’s concealing something, and I think her daughter is lying. I didn’t get a chance to talk with the other servants. The police held me downstairs while they made the investigation up-stairs. But I had a chance to look around a little bit before the police got there.”
“How bad was your trouble with Sergeant Hoffman?” she asked.
“Bad enough,” he said, “the way things are.”
“You mean you have to stick up for your client?” she asked, her eyes suspiciously moist. “What’s going to happen next?”
“I don’t know. I think that the housekeeper is going to crack. They evidently haven’t gone after her very hard yet. But they will. I think she knows something. I don’t know what it is. I’m not even sure that Eva Belter gave me the full facts of the case.”
“If she did,” said Della Street, savagely, “it’s the first time since she’s been in here that she hasn’t concealed something, and lied about something else. And that business of dragging you into it! Bah! The cat! I could kill her!”
Mason waved his hand, depreciatingly. “Never mind that. I’m in this now.”
“Does Harrison Burke know about this murder business?” she asked.
“I tried to get him on the telephone. He’s out.”
“What a sweet time for him to be out!” she exclaimed.
Mason smiled wearily. “Isn’t it?”
They looked at each other.
Della Street took a quick breath, started speaking impulsively.
“Look here,” she said, “you’re letting this woman get you in a fu
“Not if I can help it,” he said, “but I won’t go back on her until I have to.”
Della Street’s face was white, her lips drawn into a thin, firm line. “She’s a…” she said, and stopped.
“She’s a client,” insisted Perry Mason, “and she’s paying well.”
“Paying well for what? To have you represent her in a blackmail case? Or to take a rap for murder?”
There were tears in her eyes.
“Mr. Mason,” she said, “please don’t be so damned bighearted. Keep on the outside of this thing, and let them go ahead and do whatever they want to. You simply act as an attorney and come into the case as a lawyer.”