“Douglas Keene stuck by you, eh?” Mason asked, bringing the subject casually around to the young man whose framed picture stood on the table facing the bed.

  “I’ll say he stuck by me. He was a brick. He’s the most wonderful boy in the world. I never realized just how much there was to him—you know, words don’t mean anything—anyone who can talk can use words. Some people can use them better than others. Many insincere people, who have the gift of expressing themselves, can sound more sincere than those who are perfectly loyal.”

  Mason nodded, waited for her to go on talking.

  “I wanted to see you about Douglas,” she said. “Something awful has happened and Douglas is afraid I might get involved in it. He’s mixed in it himself some way—I don’t know just how.”

  “What’s happened?” Mason asked.

  “A murder,” she told him, and began to sob.

  Mason moved over to the bed, sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. The cat looked up at him appraisingly, flattened its ears slightly, then slowly relaxed, but did not resume purring.

  “Now take it easy,” Mason told her, “and give me the facts.”

  “I don’t know the facts; all I know is that Douglas rang up. He was frightfully excited. He said there’d been a murder and that he wasn’t going to let me get dragged into it; that he was going to skip out and that I’d never see him again. He said that I was to say nothing, and answer no question about him.”

  “Who was murdered?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “How did he think you might be dragged into it?”

  “Just through knowing him, I guess. It’s all too silly. But I think it’s all mixed up with Grandfather’s death.”

  “When did he telephone you?”

  “About fifteen minutes before I telephoned you. I tried to locate you every place I could think of—your office and your apartment. When I couldn’t get any answer I decided to call Uncle Charles. He’d told me you’d telephoned him something about Sam and the district attorney, and I thought he might hear from you again.”

  “Did you,” Mason asked, “know that your grandfather was murdered?”

  She stared at him with wide eyes. “Grandfather? No.”

  “Did it impress you there was anything peculiar about the manner in which the house burned?”

  “Why, no. The fire seemed to have centered right around Grandpa’s bedroom. It was a windy night and I thought they blamed the fire on defective electric wiring.”

  “Let’s come back to the cat for a minute,” Mason said. “He’s been with you ever since around eleven o’clock?”

  “Yes—shortly after eleven, I guess it was.”

  Perry Mason nodded, picked up the cat and held it in his arms.

  “Clinker,” he said, “how would you like to go for a nice ride somewhere?”

  “What do you mean?” Winifred asked him.

  Perry Mason, holding the cat, stared steadily at her, and said slowly, “Charles Ashton was murdered sometime tonight. I don’t know yet exactly what time. He was strangled, probably after he’d gone to bed. There were muddy cat tracks all over the counterpane and over the pillow; there was even a track on his forehead.”

  She got to her feet, staring at him with wide eyes. Then she opened bloodless lips and tried to scream.

  No sound came.

  Perry Mason dropped the cat to the bed, took Winifred in his arms, stroked her hair. “Take it easy,” he told her. “I’m going to take the cat with me. If anyone comes to question you, refuse to answer, no matter what the questions are.”

  She slid from his arms to sit on the bed. It was as though her knees refused to support her weight. There was panic in her face. “He didn’t do it,” she said. “He couldn’t have. I love him. He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

  “Can you buck up,” Mason asked, “until I can get rid of this cat?”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I’ll find a home for it—some place where we can keep it until things blow over. You see what it means having the cat tracks on the bedspread. It means the cat was there after the murder was committed.”

  “But it’s impossible,” she said.

  “Of course it’s impossible,” he told her, “but we’ve got to make other people see that it’s impossible. The question is, can you be brave enough to help me?”

  She nodded silently.

  Perry Mason picked up the cat and started for the door.

  “Listen,” she told him, as he put his hands on the knob of the door, “I don’t know if you understand, but you must defend Douglas. That’s why I telephoned you. You must find him and talk with him. Douglas isn’t guilty of murder. You understand what I mean?”

  “I understand,” he told her gravely.

  She came to him and put her hands on his shoulders. “He’s clever enough so the officers will never find him…. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I know you think they can find him, but you don’t realize how clever Douglas is. The officers will never, never catch him. And that means he’ll be a fugitive as long as he lives unless you clear things up…. And I know what it’ll mean as far as I’m concerned. They’ll figure that he’s going to get in touch with me. They’ll watch my mail; they’ll tap my telephone; they’ll do everything, trying to trap Douglas.”

  He nodded and patted her shoulder with his free hand, holding the big Persian cat in his left arm.

  “I haven’t much,” she said. “I’m building up a good business here. I can make my living, and I can make more than my living. I’ll pay you by the month. I’ll give you anything that I make. You can have the business and I’ll run it for you without any salary except just what I need to eat, and I can live on waffles and coffee, and …”

  “We’ll talk that over later,” Mason interrupted. “The thing to do now is to find out where we stand. If Douglas Keene is guilty, the thing for him to do is to plead guilty, and plead whatever extenuating circumstances there may be.”

  “But he’s not guilty. He isn’t; he can’t be.”

  “All right, if he isn’t, then the thing for you to do is to get rid of this damned cat. Otherwise, you’ll be tied up with the murder. Do you understand?”

  She nodded silently.

  “I’ve got to have a box or something to carry the cat in.”

  She ran to the closet and picked up a big hatbox. She jabbed her finger through the pasteboard top, making little breathing holes.

  “I’d better put him in,” she said, “he’ll understand if I do it…. Clinker, this man is going to take you with him. You must go with him and be a nice cat.”

  She put the cat in the box, stroked it for a moment or two, then gently put on the cover. She whipped a piece of string about the cover, tied it, and handed the box to Perry Mason.

  The lawyer, holding the hatbox by the string, smiled reassuringly at her, and said, “Stay right here. Remember, don’t answer questions. You’ll hear from me after a while.”

  She held open the door of the bedroom. Mason walked to the outer door, opened it, and pushed his way out into the wind and rain. The cat in the box stirred uneasily.

  Mason put the hatbox on the seat of the convertible coupe, climbed in behind the wheel and started the motor. The cat meowed a faint protest.

  Mason spoke to the cat reassuringly, drove the car for several blocks, then swung in close to the curb by an all-night drugstore. He parked the car, got out, and picking up the hatbox, walked into the drugstore, where the clerk eyed him curiously.

  Mason put the box down on the floor of the telephone booth and dialed the number of Della Street’s apartment. After a few moments, he heard her voice, thick with sleep.

  “Okay, kid,” he said, “snap out of it. Put cold water on the face, throw on a few clothes, and be ready to open the door of your apartment when I give you a ring. I’m coming out.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Somewhere around one o’clock.”

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  “I can’t tell you about it over the telephone.”

  Her voice showed that she was now fully awake. “Good Lord, Chief, I thought you only worked all night on murder cases. Now you’re doing it on a cat case. How in the world can you get into trouble with a cat?”

  “I do,” he said cryptically, “I can; I have,” and, chuckling, hung up the receiver.

  Chapter 9

  Della Street, with a robe thrown over silk pajamas, sat on the edge of her bed and watched Perry Mason untying the cord around the hatbox.

  “Getting me out of bed at one o’clock in the morning to show me the latest in hats?” she inquired.

  The lawyer, sliding the string off the cover, said, “It simply shows how easy it is to become accustomed to environment. He was raising hell in the telephone booth.”

  He pulled the cover from the box. Clinker got to his feet, arched his back in a long stretch, yawned, sniffed the air, raised his forepaws to the edge of the hatbox, and leapt out onto the bed. He sniffed Della Street inquiringly, then curled into a fluffy ball by the side of her leg.

  “If you’re going in for a collection,” she said, “it might be easier to use postage stamps. They take up less room.”

  She ran her fingers around the cat’s ears.

  “I think that’s something of a compliment,” Mason told her, “the way he takes to you. As I remember it, there are few people he likes.”

  “Going to use him as a playmate for the caretaker’s cat?” she asked.

  “He is the caretaker’s cat.”

  “Why not leave him with the caretaker, then?”

  “The last time I saw the caretaker, he was dead. His face wasn’t pretty. There were muddy cat tracks all over his bed.”

  She stiffened to attention. “Who did it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who do the police think did it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think they do, yet.”

  “Who will they think did it by the time they get that far?”

  “Several people might be interested in the caretaker. There’s some evidence indicating the caretaker had something like a million dollars in currency in his possession. Some of it may have been locked in a safety deposit box; again, the safety deposit box may have been a blind. People will do a lot for a million dollars. Then there are some rather valuable diamonds. Ashton may have had them. I’ve located the green Pontiac that followed Ashton from our office. It’s in the garage at Peter Laxter’s town house.”

  “Whom do we represent?”

  “The boy friend of a girl who runs a waffle parlor.”

  “Any retainer?”

  “Do you like waffles?” he countered.

  Her eyes showed anxiety. “Look here, Chief, you’re not going to get mixed up in a murder case without first getting a fee?”

  “I guess I’ve done it.”

  “Why don’t you sit in your office and wait for clients to come to you after they get arrested, and then go into court and defend them? You’re always out on the firing line, taking chances. How did you get this cat?”

  “It was given to me.”

  “By whom?”

  “The waffle girl. But we’re supposed to forget that.”

  “You mean you want me to keep the cat here?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Under cover?”

  “As much as you can. Or, if you have some friend who can keep it, it might be better than to have it here. The police may be looking for it. I have an idea the cat is going to figure in that murder.”

  “Please,” she pleaded, “don’t jeopardize your professional standing mixing into this case. Let it go. Sail on that liner for the Orient. After someone gets arrested go ahead and defend him if you want to, but don’t get involved in the case itself.”

  There was something maternal and tender in her eyes.

  Perry Mason reached out, possessed himself of her right hand, and patted it.

  “Della,” he said, “you’re a good kid. But the stuff you want just isn’t in the cards. I could get a swell rest on that liner to the Orient for just about three days, and then the inactivity would drive me crazy. I want to be working at high speed. I’m going to get ten times as much kick out of this as I would out of a trip to the Orient.”

  “You’re going to handle the case?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think this young man you’re representing will be accused of the murder?”

  “Probably.”

  “He hasn’t paid you any retainer?”

  Mason shook his head, and then said impatiently, “To hell with the money! If a man’s accused of murder and has money, I want a big slice of it as a fee. If people who are living their lives the best they can get into trouble and are accused of committing crimes of which they’re innocent, I want to give them a break.”

  “How do you know this chap is innocent?”

  “Only from the impression he made on me when I met him.”

  “Suppose he’s really guilty?”

  “Then we’ll find out all about the extenuating circumstances and either make him plead guilty and get the lightest sentence we can for him, or else let him get some other lawyer.”

  “That’s not an orthodox way of practicing law,” she pointed out, but there was no reproach in either her eyes or her voice.

  “Who the hell wants to be orthodox?” Mason grinned.

  She matched his grin, got to her feet. “I worry over you as a mother worries over a wayward child. You’re a combination of a kid and giant. I know you’re going to mix into something devilish, and I feel like saying, ‘Don’t go near the water.’ ”

  Mason’s grin broadened. “Maternal, eh? By looking up the application blank which you filled out when you applied for your job I could find out just how much my junior you really are. I would say it was about fifteen years.”

  “Being gallant?” she inquired. “By looking up the records in connection with your admission to practice before the courts, I could tell just how much you’re trying to flatter me.”

  He moved toward the door. “Take good care of the cat,” he said. “Don’t lose him. His name’s Clinker. He may wander away if he gets the chance. We may be able to use him later.”

  “Will the police look for him here?”

  “I don’t think so. Not right away. Things aren’t hot enough yet…. Are you going to tell me not to go near the water?”

  She shook her head. There were both pride and tenderness in her smile. “No,” she said; “just don’t get in over your head.”

  “I haven’t even got my feet wet, yet,” he told her, “but something seems to tell me I’m going to.”

  He gently closed the door, walked down the corridor to the street, and drove to Edith DeVoe’s apartment.

  The outer door of the apartment house was locked. Mason pushed his finger against the button opposite Edith DeVoe’s apartment, held it there for several seconds. There was no answer. He took a key container from his pocket, selected a skeleton key, hesitated for several seconds, then tried Edith DeVoe’s bell once more. When there was no answer, he inserted the key in the lock, and, after a moment, clicked the bolt back and entered the apartment house. He walked down the corridor to Edith DeVoe’s apartment and tapped gently on the door. When there was no answer, he stood for a moment in frowning concentration, then tried the knob of the door. The knob turned, the door opened, and he stepped into a dark room.

  “Miss DeVoe,” he said. There was no answer.

  Perry Mason switched on the light.

  Edith DeVoe lay sprawled on the floor.

  The window which opened on the alleyway was not entirely shut. It was open some two or three inches at the bottom. The bed had not been slept in, and the body was attired in pajamas of very thin silk. Near the body lay a piece of wood some eighteen inches long. One end was splintered, and near the other end was a tell-tale red stain.

  Perry Mason, closing the door carefully behind himself, stepped forward and peered down at the body. There was a wound in the scalp near the back of the head.

  The piece of wood which lay near the body had evidently been used as a club. The edges were neatly sawed. The wood was highly polished, and about an inch and a half in diameter. A fingerprint appeared very plainly imprinted in the red stain at the upper part of the wood. The varnish at the lower end was blistered.

  Mason looked swiftly about the apartment. He stepped to the bathroom. It was empty, but a blood-stained towel lay on the washstand. He walked to the fireplace. There were ashes in the grate, and it was still warm. Mason looked at his watch. It was one thirty-two. Rain had drifted in through the opening in the window. The sill was glistening with moisture, and some of the water had dripped down to the hardwood floor beneath the sill.

  Mason dropped to his knees beside the sprawled figure and felt for a pulse, listening for breathing.

  He arose, crossed to the telephone, placed a handkerchief around the receiver so he would leave no fingerprints and called police headquarters. Speaking rapidly, in a mumbling undertone, he said, “A woman is dying from a blow on the head. Send an ambulance.”

  When he was certain that his message had been understood, he gave the address in the same mumbling undertone and hung up.

  Mason polished the doorknob with his handkerchief, rubbing both inside and outside surfaces; then he switched off the lights, stepped into the corridor, pulled the door shut behind him, and started for the front exit of the apartment house.

  As he passed an apartment, he heard a man laugh, the sound of clinking chips, and a moment later, that peculiar purring noise which is made by the corners of a deck of cards being riffled in a shuffle.

  Mason walked on down the corridor. As he reached the lobby, he heard an automobile pull up to the curb. He hesitated for a moment, standing just back of the street door; then he opened the door a crack and peered out.

  Hamilton Burger had just stepped to the sidewalk, and had his back turned to Perry Mason, watching Tom Glassman get out of the car.

  Mason stepped back, gently closed the door behind himself, turned and walked down the corridor. He paused at the door where he had heard chips rattling and knocked.