The Case of the Caretaker's Cat (16 page)

"How long after you got back to your apartment did you notice your suit had blood on it?"

"Almost at once."

"Then what did you do?"

"It was a nightmare. I tried to get rid of the bloodstains and couldn't."

"Why didn't you call the officers when you saw Edith DeVoe had been murdered?"

"I just lost my head, that's all. I was afraid they'd try to pin it on me. I was shocked and frightened. I just ran away. Then when I saw my clothes all spattered with blood… Ugh! It was a nightmare!"

"Did you kill Ashton?"

"Of course not; I didn't even see him."

"Did you go to the house to get the cat?"

"Yes."

"Were you in Ashton's room?"

"Yes."

"Did you look around any?"

The man hesitated. Della Street swung the car to avoid a truck. The car swerved out of control, lurched toward a telephone pole. Della Street fought with the steering wheel. Perry Mason gave but a passing glance to the road ahead as Della struggled to get the car back under control, leaned close to Douglas Keene's ear and said, "Did you look around any while you were in the room?"

Keene hesitated.

"Go on and answer."

"Yes, I was looking for something."

"What?"

"Evidence."

"Evidence of what?"

"I don't know; I thought there was something fishy in the way Ashton had been spending money. I was just looking around. Jim Brandon hinted Ashton had the diamonds in his crutch."

"Did you wear gloves or did you leave fingerprints?"

"I must have left fingerprints."

"Now, look here, Keene, wasn't Ashton there? Wasn't he dead? Aren't you trying to cover up something?"

"No," Keene said, "he wasn't there. I'm telling you the truth."

"You left before he came in?"

"So help me, Mr. Mason, that's the truth."

Della Street had the car back under control. Street intersections whizzed by in flashes. She braked the car for a turn.

"Don't tell anyone what you've told me," Mason said. "You're going to surrender at police headquarters. Refuse to talk unless I'm with you. You've got to do that in order to protect Winifred. If you so much as open your mouth, Winifred is going to become involved. Can you keep quiet for her sake?"

The youth nodded.

The car skidded as Della Street made the turn, slammed on the brakes and slid to a stop in front of police headquarters. Mason grabbed Keene by the arm, rushed him out of the car and up the steps. As they were about to enter, a commandeered automobile screeched to a stop at the curb and Sergeant Holcomb, with a gun in his right hand, jumped from the car and sprinted after them. Mason rushed Keene down the corridor to a door marked "Homicide Squad," kicked it open and said casually to the man at the desk, "This is Douglas Keene. He's surrendering himself into custody, in accordance with the understanding I had…"

The door burst open. Sergeant Holcomb tore into the room.

"I've got you this time," he said to Perry Mason.

"For what?" Mason inquired.

"Resisting arrest."

"I didn't resist arrest."

"I was trying to arrest this man and you took him away from me; I don't give a damn if you did take him to headquarters. I had him arrested before you took him here."

"You can't arrest a man," Mason said, "until you've actually taken him into custody. After you've taken him into custody, he can escape, but there can't be any arrest until the man is in custody."

"But you helped him beat it so I couldn't make the arrest. I'm going to get you for that."

Mason smiled, and said, "You overlook one thing, Sergeant. A private citizen can make an arrest when a felony has in fact been committed and he has reasonable ground to believe that the person he is arresting is the one who committed the felony. I put Douglas Keene under arrest."

Sergeant Holcomb pushed the gun back into his holster. The officer behind the desk said, "Take it easy, Sergeant. Mason has surrendered him."

Sergeant Holcomb turned without a word and pushed out of the door. A newspaper reporter came running into the room. He grabbed Mason by the arm. "Do I get an interview with Keene?" he asked.

"Certainly," Mason told him. "I can tell you exactly what Douglas Keene will say, and all he will say. He will say that it is remarkably nice weather we are having for this time of year, and that is all, my dear boy, ab-so-lute-ly all."

"The Union Depot?" she asked.

He nodded. "The office is going to be too hot – you know, too many newspaper men, cops, detectives, district attorneys, and what have you. I want to use the telephone, and I'll go down to the depot while you're packing up."

She deftly avoided a jay-walking pedestrian, and gave Mason a sidelong glance. "What do you mean, while I'm packing up?"

"A couple of suitcases," he said, "a light airplane trunk if you have one."

"I have one."

"All of your party clothes. You're going to stay at an exclusive hotel, and I want you to put on a good show – act the part, you know."

"What's going to be my part?"

"A bride."

"The man in the case?" she inquired, as she slid the car to a stop when a traffic signal turned against her.

"He will only appear long enough to be very suddenly called back to town, interfering with his honeymoon most materially."

She was facing him now with calm, steady eyes, in which there was a mischievous light. "And who is the husband going to be?"

He bowed. "Unaccustomed as I am to honeymoons, I shall do my best to act the part of an awkward groom during the few minutes between the time we register and when I am called back to town upon most urgent business."

Her eyes dwelt upon his profile. Ahead of her a traffic light flashed from red to orange, through orange to green and was unheeded. Behind her a chorus of protesting horns sought to call her to her senses. Her voice was vibrant. "You always believe in acting a part perfectly," she said. "Would it be natural for a newlywed husband to interrupt his honeymoon?…"

The growing protest of blaring horns suddenly called her attention to the fact that the traffic on her right was streaming by, while the traffic on the left and directly behind her, being blocked by the car she drove, was expressing its sentiment with all of the impatience which a modern automobile horn is capable of registering.

"Oh, well," she said with whimsical philosophy, as she snapped her eyes back to the road and saw the green light of the traffic signal, "how are those poor fishes behind me going to know I'm a bride just starting on a honeymoon?"

She kicked the gear in, stepped on the throttle, and sent the convertible shooting across the intersection with such speed that she was half way down the block before some of the protesting drivers had fully awakened to the fact that the cause of their protests had departed, and only their own sluggish reactions were holding up the stream of traffic.

Mason lit a cigarette, offered it to her. She took it, and he lit another for himself. "I'm sorry," he said, "to wish this on you, Della, but you're the only one I know whom I can trust."

"On a honeymoon?" she asked dryly.

"On a honeymoon," he answered tonelessly.

She snapped the wheel savagely, making the tires scream as the car slid around to the left and headed toward the Union Depot.

"You don't necessarily need to collect any traffic tickets en route," he observed.

"Shut up," she told him. "I want to collect my thoughts. To hell with the traffic tickets."

She sped down the street, deftly avoiding the vehicles, slid to a stop in front of the Union Depot.

"I meet you here?" she asked.

"Yes," he told her, "with plenty of baggage."

"Okay, Chief."

He left the car, walked around the hood, took off his hat and stood for a moment by the curb. She sat very straight in the seat. Her skirts, well elevated to allow free action of her legs and feet in driving the car, showed her legs to advantage. Her chin was up, her eyes slightly defiant. She smiled into his face. "Anything else?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "you'll have to practice your best honeymoon manners, and quit calling me Chief."

"Okay," she said…"Darling," and, leaning forward, pressed her mouth close to his surprised lips. Then, before he could move, she had shot back the clutch, stepped on the throttle and whizzed away from the curb like a bullet, leaving Perry Mason standing on the curb blinking with surprise, lipstick showing on his lips.

Mason heard a chuckle from a newsboy. He grinned rather sheepishly, wiped the lipstick from his mouth, and strode toward the telephone booth.

He put in a call for Winifred Laxter, heard her voice on the telephone, "It's okay, Winifred," he said. "Your boyfriend came through like the trump that I knew he was."

"You mean… he's in touch with you?"

"He's in jail," Mason said.

She gave a gasp.

"And," Mason promised her grimly, "he won't stay there long. Don't try to get in touch with me. I won't be at my office. I'll call you as soon as there's anything new. Don't give out any statements to the press, in case any reporters should start looking for interviews. Pose for all the pictures they want, back of your waffle counter, or in front of the place. If you play it right, you should get a lot of advertisement for Winnie's Waffles."

"Advertisement!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "I want Douglas. I want to go to him. I want to see him."

"That's the one thing you can't do. If they'd let you in to see him he'd talk to you, and I don't want him to talk. They probably wouldn't let you in anyway. I don't think it's going to be long now until I have the case cleared up."

"You don't think Douglas is guilty, do you?"

Perry Mason laughed light-heartedly. "No boy that came through the way he did is guilty of anything," he said. "The kid's young, and he lost his head. You can't blame him for that. He was confronted with a frame-up that would have stampeded an older man."

"Then it was a frame-up?"

"Of course, it was a frame-up."

"May I quote you as saying that – you know, in case someone…"

"You may not," he told her. "For the next forty-eight hours you may concentrate your attention upon making waffles. Good-by. I'm catching a train," and he hung up before she could protest.

Mason dropped another coin and called Drake's office. Paul Drake, himself, answered the telephone.

"Got a lot for you, Perry," he said. "Do you want it over the telephone?"

"Spill it."

"It's an earful."

"What is it?"

"There was a poker game going on – in the apartment house where Edith DeVoe was murdered. The poker game was on the same floor."

"So what?" Mason inquired.

"So one of the participants in the poker game, reading about the murder, considers it his civic duty to report to the police all about the poker game and about a mysterious gentleman who broke in on the game, saying he was the occupant of an adjoining apartment. That was just about the time the police showed up, and the man had an idea the chap might have been connected with the crime. The police showed him photographs of all the principals in the crime and then, after they checked up on his descriptions, showed him a photograph of you, and he identified it instantly."

"The moral of that story," Mason said, "is: Don't play cards with strangers. What are the cops doing? Are they taking it seriously?"

"I think they are. Sergeant Holcomb is all worked up about it. You sure as hell do get around, don't you, Perry?"

"I can't spend all my time in my office," Mason grinned. "This was after office hours, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. I thought you should know about it. But here's another funny development. The bird identified one of the other pictures – that of Sam Laxter. He said that he'd seen Sam in the corridor about eleven fifteen. They confronted him with Laxter and he made a positive identification."

"What does Sam say?"

"He isn't saying anything. Shuster is doing all the talking. Shuster says the man was drunk; that the illumination in the hallway wasn't good; that Sam wasn't anywhere near the place; that the man's a publicity seeker; and that Sam Laxter and Douglas Keene look very much alike and that Keene was the one the man saw; that the man wasn't wearing glasses, and that he's a liar."

"That's all he's said so far?" Mason asked, grinning into the transmitter.

"Yeah, but give the boy a little time and he'll think up something else."

"I'll say he will. Have the police put Sam under arrest?"

"They're questioning him in the district attorney's office."

"And Shuster isn't present?"

"Shuster naturally isn't present, and Sam isn't talking."

"Do they know just when Edith DeVoe was killed?" Mason asked.

"No. She was dead when the ambulance arrived. Her skull was fractured. Death itself took place shortly before the ambulance got there, but when the blow was struck is another question. She may have died instantly. She may have been unconscious for an hour or two and then died. They can't fix the time of the attack. The police know about the marriage now. They've got a statement from Milton, and Oafley has told them all he knows. The marriage ceremony took place right around ten o'clock. The boys from the poker game came in and helped celebrate. They were in there fifteen or twenty minutes. Then they left. Oafley says he left about ten minutes to eleven."

"Rather strange that Oafley should leave within an hour after the ceremony was performed," Mason said slowly.

"As far as Oafley's concerned, he's in the clear," Drake said. "The officers have checked his story. He left about ten minutes to eleven. He arrived at the house about five or ten minutes after eleven. That gives him a perfect alibi on the Ashton killing. Ashton was killed right around ten thirty. Four or five people can prove that Oafley was in Edith DeVoe's apartment as late as ten twenty anyway, and one person saw him leaving the apartment house a few minutes before eleven. The housekeeper saw him come in about ten minutes after eleven."

"Could Oafley have smashed Edith DeVoe's head before he left her apartment?"

"No, she was alive at eleven o'clock. She knocked on the door where the boys were playing poker and asked to borrow some matches."

"Everyone in the case seems to have been going to Edith DeVoe's apartment last night," Mason said thoughtfully. "She must have been holding a reception."

"It's only natural," Drake told him, "when you consider that she'd been telling what she knew about Sam Laxter. These things get around, you know.

"Frankly, Perry, you've got a swell break. Things look pretty black for Sam Laxter right now. The only alibi he has to tie to is that he was in Shuster's office while Ashton was being murdered. It's now come out that Shuster had been tipped off when Burger made arrangements to exhume Peter Laxter's body, so Shuster telephoned Sam and Sam came to his office."

"Find out anything about that Chevrolet?" Mason asked.

"I can't prove it's the same Chevrolet," Drake said, "but a couple of people noticed an old Chewy with a crumpled fender parked in front of the apartment house where Edith DeVoe lived, about eleven o'clock. One witness remembered it because he said there was a new Buick parked right behind it and he noticed the contrast in the two cars."

Mason said slowly, "Could you see that the police were tipped off to ask Sam Laxter how it happened he left his house in the green Pontiac and came back in the caretaker's Chevrolet?"

"I could tip them off to ask, but it wouldn't do any good. Laxter is keeping quiet. He's making a lot of mysterious references to the old stand-by – the married woman with whom he spent an hour after leaving Shuster's office. He won't jeopardize her good name."

Mason laughed heartily. "My God," he said, "hasn't Shuster worn out that alibi yet? Every one of his clients has used it for the past ten years."

"It sometimes gets by with a jury," Drake pointed out. "But, anyway, it gives your man, Keene, a swell break if you play it right."

"I'm going to play it right," Mason promised him grimly. "How about the Clammert automobile, did you find out anything?"

"Some," Drake said. "I find that Watson Clammert purchased a Buick sedan and had a state license issued to him. The number is 3D44-16. I haven't been able to get the engine number or the body number, but we'll get them. He took a full coverage policy with the International Automotive Indemnity Exchange."

"Did you get a description of him?" Mason asked.

"No. But I'm working on it."

"Quit working on it, then. Drop Watson Clammert like a hot potato. Call in your men. Tell them not to ask any more questions. You've done a swell job, Paul. And now you can go get some sleep."

"You mean you don't want anything more?"

"Not another thing. So far as you're concerned, the case is closed. Further inquiries are just going to make trouble."

Drake said slowly, "Well, you know your business, Perry… Here's a tip for you. I got it from headquarters. The police are planning to rush through a preliminary hearing for Douglas Keene and call Sam Laxter as a witness. Then they'll ask him where he was at the time the murder was committed. Laxter will be given his choice of naming the woman or going to jail for contempt."

"Under the circumstances, he'll probably go to jail for contempt and get a lot of newspaper sympathy," Mason said. "Anything else?"