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She put a hand to herthroat.
“How can they trace guns like that?”
“There’s a record kept of everything.”
“I knew that we should have done something with that gun,” she said almost hysterically.
He said, “Yes, and then you would have put your head in the noose. You’ve got yourself to think of. Your own position in this is none too pretty. You want to save Burke, of course, if you can. But the thing that I’m trying to bring out is that if Burke did the thing, you’d better come clean and tell me. Then, if we can keep Burke out of it, we will. But I don’t want you to get in the position where they build up a case against you, while you’re trying to shield Burke.”
She started to pace the floor, twisting her handkerchief in her fingers.
“Oh, my God!” she said. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
“I don’t know whether or not it’s ever occurred to you,” he said, “but there’s a penalty for being an accessory after the fact, or for compounding a felony. Now, we don’t either one of us want to get in that position. What we want to do is to find out who did this thing, and find it out before the police do. I don’t want them to frame a murder charge on you, and I don’t want them to frame one on me. If Burke is guilty, the thing to do is to get in touch with Burke, and get him to surrender himself, and rush the case through to a trial before the District Attorney’s office can get too much evidence. I’m going to take steps to see that Locke keeps quiet, and call off this blackmail article in Spicy Bits.”
She stared at him for a moment, and then asked, “How are you going to do that?”
He smiled at her. “In this game,” he said, “I’m the one that has to know everything. The less you know, the less you stand a chance of telling.”
“You can trust me. I can keep a secret,” she told him.
“You’re a good liar,” he said judiciously, “if that’s what you mean. But this is once where you won’t have to lie, because you won’t know what’s going on.”
“But Burke didn’t do it,” she insisted.
He frowned at her.
“Now listen,” he said, “that’s the reason I wanted to get in touch with you. If Burke didn’t do it, who did?”
She shifted her eyes. “I told you some man had a conference with my husband. I don’t know who he was. I thought it was you. It sounded like your voice.”
He got to his feet, and his face darkened.
“Listen,” he said, “if you go trying that kind of a game on me, I’ll throw you to the wolves. You’ve tried that game once. That’s enough.”
She started to cry and sobbed. “I c-c-can’t help it. You asked me. There’s nobody listening. I t-t-t-told you who it w-w-was. I heard your v-v-voice. I won’t t-t-tell the p-p-police, not even if they t-t-torture me!”
He took her by the shoulders and slammed her down on the bed. He pulled her hands from her face and stared at her eyes. There was no trace of tears in them.
“Now listen,” he said, “you didn’t hear my voice, because I wasn’t there at all. And cut out that sobbing act—unless you’ve got an onion in your handkerchief!”
“Then it was somebody whose voice sounded like yours,” she insisted.
He scowled at her.
“Are you in love with Burke?” he asked. “And trying to put me in a position where you can throw me over in case I can’t square the thing for Burke?”
“No. You wanted me to tell the truth, and I’m telling it.”
“I’m tempted to get up and walk out on you, and leave you with the whole mess on your hands,” he threatened.
She said, demurely, “Then, of course, I’d have to tell the police whose voice it was I heard in that room.”
“So that’s your little game, eh?”
“I haven’t any game. I’m telling the truth.” Her voice was sweet, but she didn’t meet his eyes.
Mason sighed. “I never went back on a client yet, guilty or i
She sat on the bed and twisted her handkerchief about her fingers.
In a moment he began to talk, “On my way back down the hill, after I’d left your house, I stopped to talk with the clerk in the drug store where you telephoned to me. He was watching you when you went in the telephone booth, which was only natural. A woman in evening clothes, with a man’s coat on, who is sopping wet, and goes into a telephone booth, in an all night drug store, after midnight, is naturally going to attract some attention. Now this clerk told me that you called two telephone numbers.”
Wide-eyed she looked at him, but she said nothing.
“Who did you call besides me?” he asked.
“Nobody,” she said, “the clerk’s mistaken.”
Perry Mason put on his hat and pulled it low down over his forehead. He turned to Eva Belter and said savagely, “I’m going to get you out of this somehow. I don’t know just how. But I’m going to get you out of it. And, by God, it’s going to cost you money!”
He jerked open the door, went out into the hall, and slammed the door behind him. The first light of dawn was coloring the eastern sky.
Chapter 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.”