The Case of the Lucky Legs (9 page)

"I was wondering just what time the murder was committed, with reference to the time that you got to the apartment?" Bradbury went on. "The time element may be important there."

"It may be," agreed Perry Mason.

"It seems funny to me," Bradbury said, "that if Margy had been in the bathroom and some one had killed Frank Patton, that the door would have been locked."

"Why?" asked Perry Mason.

"In the first place," said Bradbury, "it is utterly impossible for me to believe that Marjorie Clune had a key to Frank Patton's apartment. That is simply out of the question."

"Go ahead," Mason told him, "I'm listening."

"In the event," said Bradbury, "Marjorie Clune was barricaded in the bathroom, and Frank Patton broke in through the door, and there was a struggle and Marjorie killed him in self-defense, she would have been the last one to go through the door."

"Yes," said Mason, "what of it?"

"In that event, the door wouldn't have been locked. Since Marjorie Clune didn't have a key to it, and since the dead man could hardly have locked the door.

"On the other hand," went on Bradbury, his eyes boring into those of Perry Mason with steady insistence, "if Marjorie Clune had been in the bathroom, and Patton had been trying to get in the bathroom, but hadn't been able to do so, and some other person had walked through the door into the apartment and killed Patton, and then walked out as you suggest, locking the door behind him, how could Marjorie have got out of the apartment?"

Perry Mason kept watching Bradbury in silent speculation.

"The only other possible solution," said Bradbury, "would be that Marjorie Clune ran out of the bathroom while the two men were struggling. That is, while Frank Patton was struggling with the intruder who had entered through the door of the apartment. In that event, Marjorie Clune would have seen this murderer, and would undoubtedly either have recognized him if she had known him, or been able to give something in the line of a description of him if she hadn't known him."

"And then?" asked Perry Mason.

"Then," said Bradbury, "the murderer would have stabbed Patton and run from the apartment. In that event, he would probably have seen Marjorie Clune, either when she emerged from the bathroom, or while she was in the corridor, or in the elevator."

"You," said Perry Mason, "are a pretty good detective yourself, Bradbury. You've reasoned the thing out quite clearly."

"I simply wanted to impress upon you," said Bradbury slowly, "that just because I came from a smaller city is no reason that I can't stand up and fight when the occasion arises. I don't want you to underestimate me, Counselor."

Perry Mason's eyes were filled with interest and with the glint of a dawning respect.

"Hell, no, Bradbury," he said, "I'm not going to underestimate you."

"Thank you, Counselor," said Bradbury and picked up his highball glass. He finished draining the highball.

Perry Mason watched him attentively for a few moments, and then raised his wine-glass, sipped, and refilled the glass from the bottle.

"Are you finished talking?" he asked.

"No," said Bradbury, "there's one other point I wanted to make. That is, that I am satisfied Marjorie Clune must have seen the murderer, that in the event she didn't make an outcry or an alarm, it was because the murderer was known to her, and she desired to protect him."

"You're referring to Dr. Doray?" asked Perry Mason.

"Exactly," said Bradbury with a tone of cold finality in his voice.

"Look here," Mason said, "I may be able to set you right on one thing, Bradbury. I saw Marjorie Clune when she came out from the apartment house. I stood and watched her until she had walked a little over a half a block and then I turned and went into the apartment house. I took the elevator. After I left the elevator, I went down the corridor directly to Frank Patton's apartment. I didn't notice any one else coming from the apartment where Patton lived. I stayed at the door until after the officer arrived there. The officer wouldn't have let any one leave the apartment without his knowledge until he had made the search. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the apartment was empty when I arrived there. There is, of course, the possibility that a murderer might have gone down the stairs while I was coming up in the elevator. That is only a possibility. I had met Dr. Doray. If I had seen him there in the apartment house, I would have recognized him."

"How about the windows?" asked Bradbury. "Were there windows?"

"Yes, there's a window that opens on a fire escape," Mason said slowly.

"There you are," Bradbury triumphantly pointed out.

"But," said Perry Mason, "if Dr. Doray had been in the room, if Marjorie Clune had run from the bathroom and out of the door, why would Dr. Doray have locked the door of the apartment and then gone through the window and down the fire escape?"

"That," said Bradbury, "is one of the things we are going to determine."

"Yes," Mason agreed, "there are a lot of things we will have to determine when we've got more facts, Bradbury. You understand that it's a physical impossibility for a man to reconstruct the scene of a crime, unless he knows all of the facts."

"I understand that all right," Bradbury said, "but the point I'm getting at is that the facts as we know them, don't seem to check up with certain things that must have happened."

"That," Mason said, "is something for us to figure on when we come into court and start analyzing the case of the prosecution."

"I would prefer," Bradbury said, "to figure on them right now."

"Then," Perry Mason said, "you think that Bob Doray is the one who is guilty of the murder?"

"To be frank with you, I do. I have told you all along that the man was a dangerous man. I feel certain that he is the one who is implicated in the murder, and I feel equally certain that Marjorie Clune will try to shield him, if it is possible for her to do so."

"Do you think she loves him?"

"I am not certain as to that. I think she is fascinated by him. It may be that she thinks she is in love with him. You understand, Counselor, there's a distinction."

Perry Mason regarded the hard glittering eyes of J.R. Bradbury with a new-found respect.

"I understand," he said.

"Furthermore," Bradbury said, "in the event Marjorie Clune tries to sacrifice herself, in order to give Dr. Doray a break, I propose to see that she doesn't do it. Have I made myself plain on that point?"

"More than plain," Perry Mason said.

Bradbury tilted the flask over his glass and poured in another generous shot of rye, which he diluted with ginger ale from the bottle.

"No matter what happens," he said, "Marjorie must not be allowed to sacrifice herself for Dr. Doray."

"Then you want me to try and show that Dr. Doray did the crime?" asked Perry Mason.

"On the contrary," said Bradbury slowly. "I want to impress this upon you, Counselor, that in the event it turns out that I am right, and Dr. Doray is either implicated in this or it should appear that he is the one who actually committed the murder, I think I shall instruct you to represent Dr. Doray."

Perry Mason sat bolt upright in his chair.

"What?" he asked.

Bradbury nodded slowly.

"I shall ask you," he said, "to represent Dr. Doray."

"If I'm representing him," Perry Mason said, "I'm going to do my best to get him off."

"That would be understood," Bradbury told him.

Perry Mason ceased eating, and his fingers made drumming motions on the edge of the tablecloth as he stared across at Bradbury.

"No," he said slowly, "I don't think that I'll underestimate you, J.R. Bradbury – that is never again."

Bradbury smiled. "And now, Counselor," he said, "that we understand one another perfectly, we can proceed to forget business and eat and drink."

"You can," Mason told him, grinning, "but I've got to get in touch with my office, and I have an idea there'll be some detectives prowling around the office."

"What will they want?" Bradbury inquired.

"Oh, they'll know that I was out at the apartment, and they'll want to find out what I went there for, and all about it."

"How much are you going to tell them?"

"I'm not going to tell them about you, Bradbury," Mason said. "I'm going to keep you very much in the background."

"That's all right," Bradbury remarked.

"And," Perry Mason said, "if there's any kind of a chance to build up newspaper publicity about a romance with Dr. Doray, I'm going to do that."

"Why?"

"Because," Mason told him, staring steadily at him, "you're an intelligent man, Bradbury, I can be frank with you. You're an older man, much older than Marjorie Clune; you've got money. In the event that Marjorie gets in a jam, and the first newspaper notoriety features her as a woman who won a leg contest, and further, features the rich sugar daddy who came to town to hunt her up, it's going to convey an entirely different impression, than handling it the other way."

"What other way?" Bradbury asked.

"On the theory that Marjorie Clune came to town. That she was bitterly disillusioned. That Dr. Robert Doray, a young dentist, only a few years older than herself, abandoned his practice, borrowed what money he could and came on to the city, determined to find her. That is going to make an entirely different picture, one of young romance."

"I see," Bradbury said.

"We're handicapped in this case," Perry Mason went on, "because of the leg contest. The minute the newspapers get wind of what it's all about, they'll start in publishing pictures of Marjorie Clune and the pictures naturally will be run to leg. That's going to attract the attention of readers, but it isn't going to build up exactly the sort of publicity for Marjorie that we want."

Bradbury nodded his head slowly.

"There is one thing, Counselor," he said, "that we can agree upon."

"What's that," asked Mason.

"That we are determined not to underestimate each other," Bradbury said, smiling. "And don't think for a minute that you have to apologize to me for anything you are doing, Counselor. You go ahead and handle the publicity on this any way you want to, only," and here Bradbury's eyes fixed upon Perry Mason with a hard glitter of businesslike scrutiny, "don't think for a minute that I'm going to let Marjorie Clune take the rap on this without fighting tooth and toe-nail. I'll drag any one into it in order to get her out. Any one, do you understand?"

Perry Mason sighed as he poured the last of the wine into his glass, and tore off another piece of bread, on which he placed a generous slab of butter.

"Hell," he said moodily, "I heard you the first time, Bradbury."

Della Street's voice was low and cautious.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Why?" he wanted to know.

"There are two detectives up here."

"That's all right, tell them to wait. I'm coming."

"Are you all right, chief?"

"Of course I'm all right."

"Nothing's happened?"

"Nothing that need bother you."

Her voice came in a rapid rush.

"They're suspicious; they hear me talking on the telephone. They're going to plug in on the other line…" Then, in a higher voice, she said, "… simply can't tell you when he will be in. I think he's going to be in sometime tonight. He told me to wait until I heard from him. I haven't heard from him yet. If you'll leave your name, I'll tell him that you called, or you can leave your number, and he'll call you back if he wants to talk with you."

Perry Mason disguised his voice, said, "No message," and slid the receiver back on the hook.

He paused as he emerged from the telephone booth, to light a cigarette and stare at the glowing end with eyes that were fixed meditatively upon the curling smoke. Then, he suddenly nodded his head as though he had reached some decision, strode across the lobby, hailed a taxicab and went at once to his office. He was serene and jaunty as he pushed the door open, and said, "Hello, Della."

"These two gentlemen…" she began, and turned her head toward the two men who sat in chairs and had them tilted back against the wall.

One of the men flipped back his coat and pulled his suspender through the armhole of his vest far enough to show a gold shield.

"We want to talk with you a minute," he said.

Perry Mason let his face light up with a smile of welcome.

"Oh," he said, "from headquarters, eh? That's fine. I thought perhaps you were a couple of clients, and I'm tired tonight. Come on in."

He held open the door to the inner office and let the detectives go in ahead of him. In closing the door, he caught Della Street's white face, her troubled eyes resting upon him, and closed his own right eye in a swift wink. Then he closed the door to the private office, indicated chairs with a wave of his hand, walked over to the big swivel chair, sat down and put his feet up on the desk.

"Well," he said, "what is it?"

"I'm Riker," said one of the men, "and this is Johnson. We do some work with the Homicide Squad."

"Smoke?" asked Mason, shoving a package of cigarettes across the desk.

The men both took cigarettes.

Perry Mason waited until they had lighted up, and then said, "Well, what is it this time, boys?"

"You went out to see a man named Frank Patton, in the Holliday Apartments on Maple Avenue."

Mason nodded cheerfully.

"Yes," he said, "I went out there and played around, but couldn't get any answer. A police officer showed up with a woman leading him along and jabbering a string of stuff about some girl having hysterics in there. I figured perhaps there was a petting party and the man didn't want to be disturbed."

"There was," said Riker, "a murder committed."

Mason's tone was casual.

"Yes," he said, "I heard that the officer broke open the door and found a murder had been committed. I didn't have a chance to find out the details. The man was lying in the room, wasn't he?"

"Yes," said Riker, "he was found dead. He was lying on the floor in his underwear. He had a bathrobe half on and half off. There was a carving knife stuck in his heart."

"Any clews?" asked Perry Mason.

"Why do you ask that?" Johnson wanted to know.

Mason laughed.

"Don't get me wrong, boys," he said. "This man is nothing in my young life, except that I wanted to interview him. As a matter of fact, his death leaves me sitting pretty."

"Just what do you mean by that?" Riker wanted to know.

"You can find out all about it, as far as I'm concerned, by talking with Carl Manchester in the district attorney's office," Perry Mason told him. "We were working together on the case. I was going to be a special prosecutor to put Patton over the hurdles."

"On what kind of a charge?" Riker asked.

"Any kind of a charge we could put against him," Mason said. "That was where I came in. I was supposed to get some sort of a charge framed up that would stick. Carl Manchester wasn't certain that he could put one against him."

"Never mind the legal end of it," Johnson said. "Give us the low-down."

"This fellow was in a racket that victimized girls with pretty legs," Mason said. "He would pick out a girl with pretty legs, and work a racket that would leave her holding the sack. It was something he worked in the small towns, picking on the Chamber of Commerce as the big sucker, and incidentally victimizing the girl."

"You mean to say he'd out-slick the Chamber of Commerce boys?" asked Johnson.

Perry Mason nodded.

"Sure," he said. "Why not?"

"Aren't they supposed to be pretty wise babies?"

"They think they are," Mason said. "As a matter of fact, there are a whole bunch of rackets that are worked on them. If you ask me, they're pretty easy."

Riker's eyes were shrewd in their appraisal.

"You're pretty high-powered," he said.

"What do you mean?" Mason asked.

"I mean that it costs money to get your services."

"Fortunately," said Perry Mason, grinning, "it does."

"All right. Somebody was interested enough to put up the money to have you prosecute this fellow."

Mason nodded.

"Sure," he said, "that goes without saying."

"All right," Riker said, "who was it?"

Mason shook his head, smiled, and said, "Naughty, naughty."

"What do you mean?" Riker demanded.

"I mean," Mason said, "that you boys are all right. You're working for your living, just the same as I am. You've asked me something that perhaps you'd like to know. If I thought it had anything to do with the murder, I might tell you. But it hasn't got anything to do with the murder, and, therefore, it becomes none of your damned business."

He smiled cheerfully at them.

"It goes to establish a motive," Riker said. "Anybody who would pay you money to put that man in jail would have a good motive for murder."

Mason grinned.

"Not after he'd given me a five thousand dollar retainer to prosecute him," he said. "If he had intended to murder the man, he'd have hung onto his five thousand dollars; he wouldn't have decorated the mahogany with me, and then gone out and killed the man so that I didn't have to do any work in order to earn my fee."

Johnson nodded slowly.

"That's so," he said.

"Just the same," Riker said, "I'd a whole lot rather know who it was that employed you."

"Perhaps you would," Mason said, "but I'd a whole lot rather not tell, and it happens that under the law, this is one of those little things that is known as a professional confidence. You can't make me testify, and therefore you can't make me answer any question. But there are no hard feelings about it."

Riker stared moodily at the toe of his boot.

"I'm not so sure that there ain't," he said.

"Ain't what?" Mason asked.

"Hard feelings about it."

"Don't get off on the wrong foot," Mason told him. "I'm giving you boys a break. I've told you as much as I can without betraying a confidence."

"So he was getting girls on the spot, was he?" Johnson demanded belligerently.

Perry Mason laughed.

"Go ask Manchester about it," he said.

Riker stared moodily at Mason.

"And you're not going to give us a break?"

Mason said slowly: "Riker, I'd like to help you boys out, but I can't tell you the name of the man who employed me. I don't think it would be fair. But I can tell you this much…"

He stopped and drummed with his fingers on the edge of his desk.

"Go on and tell us," Riker said.

Perry Mason heaved a deep sigh.

"There's a girl," he said, "from Cloverdale – his last victim – a girl named Marjorie Clune. She's here in the city somewhere."

"Where?" asked Riker.

"I'm sure I couldn't tell you," Mason said.

"All right, go on," Johnson told him. "What about her?"

"I don't know so much about her," Perry Mason said. "But she's got a sweetheart who came on from Cloverdale – a Mr. Robert Doray. He's staying at the Midwick Hotel; that's out on East Faulkner Street. He's a heck of a nice chap. I'm sure he wouldn't have any murder ideas in his system. But if he had run across Patton, he might have given him an awful beating."

"Now," said Riker, "you're giving us a break."

Mason's expression was wide-eyed in its baby-faced innocence.

"Sure I am," he said. "I told you I was willing to give you all the breaks I could. Shucks, you fellows are working for a living, just the same as I am. As a matter of fact, I've got nothing against the police on any of my cases. The police build up the best case they can, and I come into court and try to knock it down. That's business. If you fellows didn't build up your cases so you could make arrests, there wouldn't be any possibility for me to make fees by defending a man. A guy doesn't pay a lawyer fee before he's in trouble."

Riker nodded.

"That's so," he said.

"Can you tell us anything else about this Marjorie Clune?" asked Johnson.

Perry Mason rang for Della Street.

"Della," he said, "bring me that file in the Case of the Lucky Legs, will you?"

The girl nodded, stepped to the files and a moment later returned with a legal jacket.

Perry Mason nodded to her.

"That's all," he said.

She closed the door to the outer office with an indignant bang.

Perry Mason pulled the photograph out of the jacket.

"Well, boys," he said, holding up the photograph, "that photograph is of Marjorie Clune. Think you'd recognize her if you saw her again?"

Riker whistled.

Both men got from their chairs and came closer to look at the photograph.

"A girl with legs like that," Johnson proclaimed, "was just born to cause trouble. I'll bet she's mixed in this murder case."

Mason shrugged his shoulders.

"Can't prove it by me, boys," he said cheerfully. "I got a fee to prosecute Patton. Now he's dead and I don't have to prosecute him. You can check up on all of my statements by getting in touch with Manchester. In the meantime, you'd better make a check on this Dr. Doray. By the time the news gets into the papers, Doray may decide there's nothing to keep him here, and go on back to Cloverdale."

"I thought he came for the girl," Riker said.

Mason raised his eyebrows.

"Did he?" he asked.

"Didn't you say so?"

"I don't think so."

"Somehow I got that impression."

Mason sighed and made an expressive gesture with his hands.

"Boys," he said, "you can't prove anything by me. I've told you all I know about the case that isn't a violation of a professional confidence, and you can talk from now until two o'clock in the morning without getting me to tell you any more."

Riker laughed and got to his feet.

Johnson hesitated a moment, then pushed back his own chair.

"You can go out this way," Mason told them, and opened the exit door into the corridor.

When he heard their steps diminish in volume as they turned the angle of the corridor toward the elevator, Mason slammed the door, made certain that the spring lock was in place, walked to the door which led to the outer office, opened it and smiled down at Della Street.

"What's happened, chief?" she asked, with a throaty catch in her voice.

"Patton was murdered," he told her.

"Before you went out there, or afterwards?"

"Before," he said, "if he had been murdered afterwards, I'd have been mixed up in it."

"Are you mixed up in it now?"

He shook his head, then sat down on the edge of her desk, sighed, and said, "That is, I don't know."

She reached out and dropped her cool, capable fingers over his hand.

"Can't you tell me?" she asked in a low voice.

"Paul Drake telephoned just before you got here," he said. "He gave me Patton's address. It was out in the Holliday Apartments. I busted on out there. Drake was to follow me in five minutes. Just before I went into the place, I saw a good-looking Jane coming out. She had on a white coat and a white hat with a red button, also white shoes. She had blue eyes. The eyes looked frightened. I noticed her particularly because she seemed to look guilty, and frightened to death. Then, I went on up to the apartment, and knocked at the door. Nothing happened. I tried the buzzer. There was no response. I tried the door knob and it clicked back and the door opened."