The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner Read Free Book Online Page B

gangsters and gunmen."
    Mason held her eyes with his.
    "What," he insisted, "do you know about Frank Locke?"
    She shuddered and dropped her eyes. After an interval, she said, in a tired tone: "Nothing."
    Mason said, impatiently: "Every time you come here you lie to me. You're one of those baby-faced little liars that always gets by by deceit. Just because you're beautiful, you've managed to get by with it. You've deceived every man that ever loved you, every man you ever loved. Now you're in trouble, and you're deceiving me."
    She stared at him with blazing indignation, either natural or assumed.
    "You've no right to talk to me that way!"
    "The hell I haven't," said Mason, grimly.
    They stared at each other for a second or two.
    "It was something down South," she said, meekly.
    "What was?"
    "The trouble that Locke got into. I don't know what it was. I don't know where it was. I only know it was some trouble, and that it was down South somewhere. It was some trouble over a woman. That is, that's the way it started. I don't know how it finished. It may have been a murder. I don't know. I know it's something, and I know it's something that George holds over him all the time. That's the only way George ever deals with anybody. He gets something on them and holds it over them, and makes them do just as he wants."
    Mason stared at her, and said, "That's the way he handles you."
    "That's the way he tries to."
    "Was that the way he made you marry him?" asked Mason.
    "I don't know," she said. "No."
    He laughed grimly.
    "Well," she said, "what difference does it make?"
    "Maybe not any. Maybe a lot. I want some more money." She opened her purse.
    "I haven't got much more," she said. "I can give you three hundred dollars."
    Mason shook his head.
    "You've got a checking account," he said. "I've got to have more money. I'm going to have some expenses in this thing. I'm fighting for myself now as well as for you."
    "I can't give you a check. I don't have any checking account. He won't let me. That's another way that he keeps people under his control, through money. I have to get money from him in cash, or get it some other way."
    "What other way?" asked Mason.
    She said nothing. She drew out a roll of bills from the purse. "There's five hundred dollars here, and it's every cent I've got."
    "All right," said Mason. "Keep twenty-five and give me the rest."
    He pressed a button in the side of the desk. The door to the outer office framed the inquiring features of Della Street.
    "Make another receipt," said Mason, "to this woman. Make it the same way you made the other one, with reference to a ledger page. This is for four hundred and seventy-five dollars, and it's on account."
    Eva Belter passed the money over to Mason. He took it and gave it to Della Street.
    The two women maintained toward each other that air of aloof hostility which characterizes two dogs walking stiff-legged, one around the other.
    Della Street held her chin high, as she took the money, and returned to the outer office.
    "She'll give you a receipt," said Perry Mason, "as you go out. How about getting in touch with you?"
    She said, quickly enough: "That's all right. Ring the house. Ask for my maid and tell her that you're the cleaner. Tell her you can't find the dress I inquired about. I'll explain to her, and she'll pass the message on to me. Then I'll call you."
    Mason laughed.
    "You've got that down pat," he said. "You must have used it often."
    She looked up at him, and her blue eyes set in a wide stare of tearful innocence.
    "I'm sure," she said, "I don't know what you mean."
    Mason pushed back his swivel chair, got to his feet, and walked around the desk.
    "In the future," he told her, "you can save yourself the trouble of putting on that baby stare with me if you want to. I think we understand each other pretty well. You're in a jam and I'm trying to get you out."
    She got to her feet slowly, looked into his eyes, and suddenly put her hands on his