The Case of the Caretaker's Cat

Chapter 5

In the taxicab, the detective gave Perry Mason a few pertinent bits of information. "There's something off color about your caretaker, Charles Ashton," he said. "He was riding with Peter Laxter, his employer, and they were in an automobile accident. It busted Ashton up pretty badly. He tried to collect damages and couldn't. The driver of the other car wasn't insured and didn't have a dime. Ashton made quite a squawk, trying to get something, said he hadn't saved a dime."

"That's nothing unusual," Mason remarked. "It's a regular sales talk. He might have had a million dollars salted away and still have said the same thing."

Drake went on in the mechanical tone of voice of one who is primarily interested in facts rather than in their interpretation. "He had a bank account at one of the banks. As nearly as we can find out, it was the only bank account he ever had. He deposited his salary there. He'd saved something like four hundred dollars. After the accident, he spent it all, and still owes some to a doctor."

"Wait a minute," Mason interposed, "didn't Peter Laxter take care of his expenses in that automobile accident?"

"No, but don't jump at conclusions on account of it. Ashton told one of his friends that Laxter would take care of him all right in the long run, but Laxter thought he'd stand a better chance recovering damages if he could show that the money for the doctors and hospital bills had been paid out of his own savings."

"Go ahead," Mason said. "You're leading up to something. What is it?"

"Shortly before the house burned, Laxter started cashing in. I can't find how much, but it was plenty. Three days before the house burned down, Ashton rented two largesize safety deposit boxes. The boxes were rented by Charles Ashton and in his name, but he told the clerk in charge that he had a halfbrother who was to be given access to the boxes at any time. The clerk told him his halfbrother would have to come in and register for signature. Ashton said the halfbrother was sick in bed and couldn't move, but couldn't he take out a card and have the halfbrother sign. He said he'd guarantee the signature, indemnify the bank against any claim, and all that sort of stuff. The bank gave him a card for his halfbrother's signature. Ashton went out and came back in an hour or so with the signature on the card."

"What was the name?"

"Clammert—Watson Clammert."

"Who's Clammert?" Mason asked. "Is it a phony?"

"No," Drake said, "he's probably Ashton's halfbrother. That is, he was; he's dead now. He wasn't registered in the city directory, but I took a chance, inquired at the motor vehicle department and found Clammert had a driving license. I got the address, chased him down and found that Watson Clammert had died within twentyfour hours after affixing his signature to that card."

"Anything fishy about the death?" Mason asked.

"Absolutely nothing. He died of natural causes. He died in a hospital. Nurses were in constant attendance, but—and here's the phony part—he'd been in a coma for days prior to his death. He hadn't regained consciousness."

"Then how the devil," Mason asked, "could he have signed his name on that card?"

Drake said tonelessly, "I'll bite, how could he?"

"What else about him?" Mason asked.

"Apparently he and Ashton are chips off the same block. Ashton went for years without seeing him or speaking to him. It wasn't until Ashton heard that Clammert was dying in the charity ward of a hospital that he came to help him out."

"How did you get this stuff?" Mason asked.

"Ashton talked quite a bit to one of the nurses. She got a kick out of him. He was so bitterly vindictive and yet so bighearted. He'd heard Clammert was sick and broke, so he hobbled around, making a canvass of the hospitals until he found Clammert lying unconscious and near death. He dug down in his pocket and did everything he could, hired specialists, got special nurses and haunted the bedside. He left instructions with the nurse to see that Clammert had everything money could buy. Of course, the nurse knew he was dying and the doctors knew it, but, naturally, they kidded Ashton along, telling him there was perhaps one chance in a million, and Ashton told them to take that chance.

"But just to show you what a cantankerous cuss you've got for a client, he stipulated that when Clammert recovered consciousness, he was never to know who his benefactor had been. Ashton told the nurses they quarreled years ago and hadn't seen each other since—and what do you think they quarreled about?"

Mason said irritably, "I'll bite, Little Peter Rabbit, what did Ruddy the Lame Fox and Goofy the Sleeping Beauty quarrel about?"

The detective grinned and said, "A cat."

"A cat?" Mason exclaimed.

"That's right—a cat by the name of Clinker—it was just a kitten then."

"Oh, hell," Mason said disgustedly.

"As near as I can figure out," Drake went on, "from the time Ashton discovered his halfbrother until Clammert died a couple of days later, Ashton had spent something like five hundred dollars in hospital and doctors' bills. He paid everything out in cash. The nurse said he had a big sheaf of bills he carried in his wallet. Now, then, where the hell did Charles Ashton get that money?"

Mason made a grimace. "Shucks, Paul, I didn't want you to dig up facts that would put my client in a spot; I wanted you to dig up something that would put Sam Laxter in a spot."

"Well," Drake remarked in his dry, expressionless voice, "they're some of the pieces in the puzzle picture. I'm hired to get the pieces; you're hired to put them together. If they're going to make the wrong kind of picture when they're put together, you can always lose some of the pieces so no one else can find them."

Mason chuckled, then said thoughtfully, "Why the devil did Ashton want it so Clammert could go to that safety deposit box?"

"Well, the only thing I could think of," Drake said, "was that if Clammert got well Ashton intended to give him money but didn't intend to have any personal contact, so he arranged to give Clammert a key to a safety deposit box into which he'd put money from time to time and Clammert could take it out."

"That doesn't make sense," Mason said, "because Clammert would have to sign his name to get access to the box and the signature that Ashton turned in as being that of Clammert couldn't have been made by Clammert because Clammert was unconscious."

"Okay," Drake said, "you win. That's what I meant when I said the facts were the pieces in the puzzle. I get them and you put them together."

"Did anyone using Clammert's name ever go to the safety deposit boxes?" Mason asked.

"No, Clammert's never been near the box. Ashton went to it several times. He went to it yesterday, and he went to it today. While the clerks didn't want to talk about it, I gathered the impression they thought Ashton had pulled out a wad of dough from those safety boxes either yesterday or today, or both."

"How do they know what a man takes out?"

"Ordinarily they don't, but one of the clerks saw Ashton stuffing currency into a satchel."

Perry Mason laughed. "In most cases," he said, "we can't find out any facts at all until after we've gone through a lot of preliminary work. In this case they pour into our laps."

"Did your client tell you about the Koltsdorf diamonds?" Drake wanted to know.

"Gosh," Mason remarked, "I feel like the interlocutor at a minstrel show. No, Mr. Drake, Mr. Ashton did not tell me about the Koltsdorf diamonds. What about the Koltsdorf diamonds?… Now, Paul, that's your cue to tell me about the Koltsdorf diamonds."

The detective chuckled. "The Koltsdorf diamonds are about the only jewels Peter Laxter ever fell for. Lord knows how he came by them. They were some of the stones smuggled out of Russia by the old aristocracy. Peter Laxter showed them to a few friends. They were large, brilliant diamonds."

"What about them?"

"Some of this other stuff," Drake said, "such as the currency, bonds, and all that, might have burnt up when the house was burned. It wouldn't have been possible to find even a trace of them. But the Koltsdorf diamonds haven't been found."

"Diamonds in the wreckage of a burnt house could hide pretty well," Mason said dryly.

"They've taken that wreckage to pieces with a finetooth comb, sifted ashes and done all sorts of things. But the diamonds can't be located. A distinctive ruby ring which Peter Laxter always wore on his left hand was found on the body, but no diamonds."

"Tell me the rest of it," Mason demanded. "Has Ashton shown up with those diamonds?"

"No, not that I've been able to find out. But he's done other peculiar things that are just as incriminating. For instance, shortly before the fire, Laxter had been dickering for a piece of property. He'd taken Ashton out with him to look the property over. A couple of days ago, Ashton called on the owner of that property and made an offer. The offer was for cash on the nail."

"It was refused?"

"Temporarily, yes, but I think the deal's still open."

Mason, frowning thoughtfully, said, "Looks like I'm stirring up a mare's nest. Laxter might have cached his property and Ashton might have had an inside track. In that event he probably wouldn't feel obligated to hand Sam Laxter the coin on a silver platter. Guess we're due for a talk with Ashton."

Drake said tonelessly, "The two grandchildren have been pretty wild, particularly Sam. Oafley's the quiet, unsociable sort. Sam went in for speedy automobiles, polo ponies, women, and all that sort of stuff."

"Where'd the money come from?"

"From the old man."

"I thought the old man was a miser."

"He was tighter than a knot in a shoelace except with his grandchildren; he was very liberal with them."

"How much was he worth?"

"No one knows. The inventory of the estate…"

"Yes," Mason said, "I checked over the inventory of the estate. Apparently the only things that were left were the frozen assets. The other stuff hasn't been discovered yet."

"Unless Ashton discovered it," Drake commented.

"Let's not talk about that," Mason said. "I'm interested right now in cats."

"The day before the fire there was a hell of a fight out at the house. I can't find out exactly what it was, but I think this nurse can tell us. I've talked with the servants. They froze up. I hadn't got around to the nurse yet… Here's her apartment."

"What's her name—Durfey?"

"No—DeVoe—Edith DeVoe. According to the reports I get, she isn't a bad looker. Frank Oafley was pretty much interested in her when she was taking care of the old man, and he's been seeing her off and on since."

"Intentions honorable?" Mason asked.

"Don't ask me; I'm just a detective—not a censor of morals. Let's go."

Mason paid off the cab. They rang a bell, and, when a buzzer had released the door catch, entered the outer door and walked down a long corridor to a ground floor apartment. A redhaired woman with quick, restless eyes, swift, nervous motions, and a wellmodeled figure which was set off to advantage by her clothes, met them at the door of the apartment. Her face showed disappointment. "Oh," she said, "I was expecting… Who are you?"

Paul Drake bowed, and said, "I'm Paul Drake. This is Mr. Mason, Miss DeVoe."

"What is it you want?" she asked. Her speech was very rapid. The words seemed almost to run together.

"We wanted to talk with you," Mason said.

"About some employment," Paul Drake hastened to add. "You're a nurse, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, we wanted to talk with you about some work."

"What sort of a position?"

"I think we could talk it over better if we stepped inside," Drake ventured.

She hesitated a moment, looked up and down the corridor, then stepped back from the door and said, "Very well, you may come in, but only for a few minutes."

The apartment was clean and well cared for as though she had just finished a careful housecleaning. Her hair was perfectly groomed. Her nails were well kept. She wore her clothes with the manner of one who is wearing her best.

Drake sat down, relaxing comfortably, as though he intended to stay for hours.

Mason sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair. He looked at the detective and frowned.

"Now this employment may not be exactly the kind of a job you had in mind," Drake said, "but there's no harm talking it over. Would you mind telling me what your rates are by the day?"

"Do you mean for two or three days, or…"

"No, just one day."

"Ten dollars," she said crisply.

Drake took a billfold from his pocket. He extracted ten dollars but didn't at once pass it over to the nurse.

"I have one day's employment," he said. "It won't take over an hour, but I'd be willing to pay for a full day."

She wet her lips with the tip of a nervous tongue, glanced swiftly from Mason to Drake. Her voice showed suspicion. "Just what is the nature of this employment?" she asked.

"We wanted you to recall a few facts," Drake said, folding the ten dollar bill about his fingers. "It would take perhaps ten or fifteen minutes for you to give us an outline, and then you could sit down and write out the facts you'd told us."

Her voice was distinctly guarded now.

"Facts about what?"

The detective's glassy eyes watched her in expressionless appraisal. He pushed the ten dollar bill toward her. "We wanted to find out all you knew about Peter Laxter."

She gave a start, staring from face to face in quick alarm, and said, "You're detectives!"

Paul Drake's face registered the expression of a golfer who had just dubbed an approach shot.

"Let's look at it this way," he said. "We're after certain information. We want to get the facts—we don't want anything except facts. We're not going to drag you into anything."

She shook her head vehemently. "No," she said. "I was employed by Mr. Laxter as a nurse. It wouldn't be ethical for me to divulge any of his secrets."

Perry Mason leaned forward and took a hand in the conversation. "The house was burned, Miss DeVoe?"

"Yes, the house was burned."

"And you were in it at the time?"

"Yes."

"How did the house burn—rather quickly?"

"Quite quickly."

"Have any trouble getting out?"

"I was awake at the time. I smelled smoke and thought at first it was just smoke from an incinerator. Then I decided to investigate. I put on a robe and opened the door. The south end of the house was all in flames then. I screamed, and, after a few minutes… Well, I guess perhaps I shouldn't say anything more."

"You knew the house was insured?" Mason asked.

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Do you know whether the insurance has been paid?"

"Why, I think it has. I think it's been paid to Mr. Samuel Laxter. He's the executor, isn't he?"

"Was there someone in that house you didn't like?" Mason asked. "Someone who was particularly obnoxious to you?"

"Why, whatever makes you ask such a question as that?"

"Whenever a fire occurs," Mason said slowly, "which might result in the loss of life and in which a person actually was killed, the authorities usually make an investigation. That investigation isn't always completed at the time of the fire, but when it is made it's always advisable for the witnesses to tell what they know."

She thought that over for several seconds, during which her eyes blinked rapidly.

"You mean that if I shouldn't make a statement I might be under suspicion of having set the fire to trap someone whom I didn't like? Oh, but that's too absurd!"

"I'll put it to you another way," Mason said. "Was there someone in the house whom you did like?"

"Just what do you mean by that?"

"Simply this: You can't be thrown with people for some time under the same roof without forming attachments, certain likes and dislikes. Let's suppose, for example, there was some person whom you didn't like and some person whom you did. We're going to get the facts about that fire. We're going to get them from someone. If we should get them from you, it might be better all around than if we happened to get them from the person whom you didn't like, particularly if that person should try to fasten guilt upon the person you did like."

She seemed to stiffen in the chair. "You mean that Sam Laxter has accused Frank Oafley of setting that fire?"

"Certainly not," Mason said. "I am purposely refraining from making any statement of facts. I'm giving out no information. I came to get it."

He nodded to the detective. "Come on, Paul," he said.

He got to his feet.

Edith DeVoe jumped from her chair, almost ran between Mason and the door.

"Wait a minute, I didn't understand just what you wanted. I'll give you all the information I have."

"We'd want to know quite a few things," Mason said dubiously, as though hesitating about returning to his chair, "not only about the fire, but about the things which preceded it. I guess we'd better get the information somewhere else after all. We'd want to know all about the lives and personal habits of the people who lived in the house, and you, being a nurse… I guess perhaps we'd better leave you out of it."

"No, no, don't do that! Come back here. I'll tell you everything I know. After all, there's nothing that's confidential, and if you're going to get the facts I'd prefer that you get them from me. If Sam has even intimated Frank Oafley had anything to do with that fire, it's a dirty lie by which Sam hopes to save his own bacon!"

Mason sighed, then, with apparent reluctance, returned to his chair, sat once more on the arm and said, "We're willing to listen for a few minutes, Miss DeVoe, but you'll have to make it snappy. Our time is valuable, and…"

She broke into swift conversation: "I understand all that. I thought at the time there was something funny about the fire. I told Frank Oafley about it and he said I should keep quiet. I screamed and tried to arouse Mr. Laxter—that's Peter Laxter—the old man. By that time the flames were all over that end of the house. I kept screaming, and groped my way up the stairs. It was hot there and smoky, but there weren't any flames. The smoke bothered me a lot. Frank came after me and pulled me back. He said there was nothing I could do. We stood on the stairs and yelled, trying to arouse Mr. Laxter, but we didn't get any answer. Lots of black smoke was rolling up the stairs. I looked back and saw some flames just breaking through the floor near the bottom of the stairs and I knew we had to get out. We went out through the north wing. I was almost suffocated with smoke. My eyes were red and bloodshot for two or three days."

"Where was Sam Laxter?"

"I saw him before I saw Frank. He had on pajamas and a bathrobe, and he was yelling 'Fire! Fire! He seemed to have lost his head."

"Where was the fire department?"

"It didn't get there until the place was almost gone. It was very isolated, you know—the house."

"A big house?"

"It was too big!" she said vehemently. "There was too much work in it for the help they employed."

"What help was employed?"

"There was Mrs. Pixley; a girl named Nora—I think her last name was Abbington—I can't be certain; and then there was Jimmy Brandon—he was the chauffeur. Nora was sort of a general maidofallwork. She didn't live at the place, but came every morning at seven and stayed until five in the afternoon. Mrs. Pixley did all the cooking."

"And Charles Ashton, the caretaker—was he there?"

"Only occasionally. He kept the town house, you know. He'd drive in at times when Mr. Laxter would ask him. He'd been there the night of the fire."

"Where did Peter Laxter sleep?"

"On the second floor, in the south wing."

"What time did the fire take place?"

"Around one thirty in the morning. It must have been about quarter to two when I woke up. The house had been burning for some time then."

"Why were you employed? What was wrong with Mr. Laxter?"

"He'd been in an automobile accident, you know, and it had left him quite nervous and upset. At times he couldn't sleep and he had a dislike of drugs. He wouldn't let the doctor give him anything to make him sleep. I'd been a masseuse, and I massaged him when he had those nervous fits. It relaxed him. A bath in a tub of hot water, with the water running over his body, then a massage, and he could relax and sleep. And he had some heart complications. Sometimes I had to give him hypodermics—heart stimulants, you know."

"Where was Winifred the night of the fire?"

"She was asleep. We had some trouble getting her up. I thought for awhile the smoke had got her. Her door was locked. The boys nearly broke it down before they were able to wake her up."

"Where was she? In the north wing or the south wing?"

"Neither. She was in the center of the house, on the east."

"How about the two boys—where did they sleep?"

"They were in the center of the house, on the west."

"And the servants?"

"All of them were in the north wing."

"If you were there as a nurse for Mr. Laxter, and he was having heart trouble, why didn't you sleep where you would be near him in case he was taken with a spell?"

"Oh, but I did. You see, he had an electric push button installed in his room, so that all he needed to do was to signal me and I could signal back, to let him know I was coming."

"How did you signal back?"

"A button that I pressed."

"That rang a bell in his room?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you ring that the night of the fire?"

"We did. That was the first thing I did. I ran back and rang the bell repeatedly. Then, when we didn't hear from him, I started up the stairs. The fire must have burnt through the wires."

"I see. There was a lot of smoke?"

"Oh, yes, the central part of the house was simply filled with smoke."

"What was the trouble about the day before the fire?"

"What do you mean?"

"There'd been a row over something, hadn't there?"

"No… not exactly. There'd been some trouble between Peter Laxter and Sam. I don't think Frank was mixed up in it."

"Was Winifred drawn into it?"

"I don't think so. It was just an argument between the old man and Sam Laxter. Something about Laxter's gambling."

"Have you any idea how the fire started?" Mason asked.

"Do you mean did someone set it?"

Mason said slowly and impressively, "You've dodged the issue long enough, Miss DeVoe—tell us what you know about the fire!"

She took a quick breath. Her eyes faltered for a moment. "Is there any way a person could start a fire by feeding exhaust fumes into a furnace?" she asked.

Drake shook his head. "No," he said, "not exhaust fumes. Come on down to earth and…"

"Wait a minute, Paul," Perry Mason interrupted, "let's find out just what she means when she refers to exhaust fumes being put into a furnace."

"It isn't important unless a fire could be started that way," she countered evasively.

The lawyer, flashing a warning glance at the detective, nodded his head gravely and said, "Yes, I think perhaps a fire could be started that way."

"But it would have to be started several hours after the fumes were put into the furnace?"

"Just how were they put into the furnace?" Mason inquired.

"Well, it's this way: The garage was built into the house. It held three cars. The house was on a slope, and the garages were on the southwest corner, down the slope. I guess when they built the house there was that extra room under the hill and the architects just decided to put garages in there, instead of having separate buildings or…"

"Yes," Mason agreed hurriedly, "I understand exactly what you mean. Tell me about the exhaust fumes."

"Well," she said, "I'd been out for a walk and I was coming back to the house when I heard the sound of a car running in the garage. The garage door was closed, but the motor kept running. I thought someone must have gone away and left his motor running without knowing it, so I opened the door—that's a little door in the side—not the big sliding door that you open to let the cars out—and switched on the lights."

Mason leaned toward her. "What did you find?" he asked.

"Sam Laxter was sitting in there in his car, with the motor running."

"The motor of his car was running?"

"Yes."

"Running slowly, as though it were idling?"

"No, it was running rapidly. I would say the motor was being raced. If it had been running slowly, I couldn't have heard it."

"How did that get exhaust fumes into the furnace?" Paul Drake inquired.

"That's the peculiar thing. I just happened to notice that there was a tube running from the car to the heating pipe. The furnace was a gas furnace which supplied hot air. It was in a basement in the back of the garage."

"How did you know the tube from the exhaust led into the pipe?"

"I saw it, I tell you! I saw a tube from the exhaust running along the floor and then up into a pipe. You see the pipes from the furnace—that is some of them—ran up through the garage."

"Did Sam Laxter know you'd seen the tube running from the exhaust?" the lawyer asked.

"Sam Laxter," she said very emphatically, "was drunk. He could hardly stand. He switched off his motor and spoke roughly to me."

"What did he say?" Mason asked.

"He said, 'Get the hell out of here. Can't a man ever have any privacy without you snooping around? "

"What did you say?"

"I turned on my heel and left the garage."

"Didn't say anything to him?"

"No."

"Did you switch out the lights when you went out?"

"No, I left the lights on so he could find his way out."

"How did you know he was drunk?"

"From the way he was sprawled all over the seat and the tone of his voice."

Mason's eyes narrowed into thoughtful slits. "See his face clearly?" he asked.

She frowned for a moment, and said, "Why, I don't believe I saw his face. He wears a big creamcolored Stetson, you know, and when I switched on the lights the first thing I saw was this Stetson hat. I walked over toward the side of the car. He was slumped down over the wheel and when I came up beside the car, he hung his head… Come to think of it, I didn't see his face at all."

"Did you recognize his voice?"

"The voice was thick—you know the way a man's voice sounds when he's been drinking."

"In other words," Mason said, "if it came to a showdown in court, you couldn't swear positively that it was Sam Laxter who was in that car, could you?"

"Why, of course I could. No one else around the house wore that sort of a hat."

"Then you're identifying the hat instead of the man."

"What do you mean?"

"Anyone could have put on that hat."

"Yes," she said acidly, "they could have."

"It may be important," Mason said, "and if you had to testify, you'd be crossexamined ruthlessly."

"You mean I'd have to testify about how the fire started?"

"Something like that. How do you know it wasn't Frank Oafley who was sitting in there behind the wheel?"

"I know it wasn't."

"How?"

"Well, if you want to know, because I'd been out with Frank Oafley. We'd been walking, and I'd left him at the corner of the house. He went around toward the front and I came up toward the back. That took me past the garages. That was when I heard the sound of the motor running."

"How about the chauffeur—what was his name Jim Brandon?"

"That's right."

"Could it have been the chauffeur?"

"Not unless he was wearing Sam Laxter's hat."

"Whom else have you told about this?" Mason asked.

"I've told Frank."

"You usually call him by his first name?" Mason asked.

She turned her eyes quickly from Mason's, then, after a moment, raised them to stare defiantly at him. "Yes," she said. "Frank and I are very close friends."

"What did he say when you told him about it?"

"He said there was no way exhaust fumes could start a fire; that I'd just make trouble if I said anything about it, and to keep quiet."

"Whom else did you tell?"

"I told Winifred's boy friend—not Harry Inman—but the other one."

"You mean Douglas Keene?"

"That's right—Douglas Keene."

"Who's Harry Inman?"

"He was a boy who was rushing her. I think she favored him, but, as soon as he found out she wasn't going to get any money, he dropped her like a hot potato."

"What did Douglas Keene say when you told him?"

"Douglas Keene said he thought it was evidence of the greatest importance. He asked me a lot of questions about where the different pipes led, and wanted to know if the pipe into which the tube was running ran up to Peter Laxter's bedroom."

"Did it?"

"I think it did."

"Then what?"

"He advised me to tell the authorities what I'd seen."

"Did you do it?"

"Not yet. I was waiting for… a friend… I wanted to get his advice before I did anything which would cause trouble."

"What time was this that you encountered Sam Laxter in the garage?"

"About half past ten, I guess."

"That was several hours before the fire."

"Yes."

"Do you know whether Sam came in the house immediately after that?"

"No, I don't. I was so angry when he made that crack I walked out to keep from slapping him."

"But he must have returned to the house before the fire because he was in pajamas and robe when you were aroused by the fire."

"Yes, that's so."

"And he was fully clothed when you saw him there in the car?"

"I think so, yes."

"Now, you say that you turned on the lights?"

"Yes. Why?"

"The lights in the garage were off?"

"Yes."

"The door was closed?"

"Yes."

"Then the last person driving a car into that garage must have closed the door behind him, is that right?"

"Yes, of course."

"And the light switch was near the small door."

"Within a few inches of it. Why?"

"Because," Mason said slowly, "if Laxter had driven his car into that garage, he must necessarily have left the car, gone to the garage door, closed it, switched off the lights and then returned to his own car. After all, one doesn't drive cars into garages through closed doors."

"Well, what of it?"

"If he was so drunk he couldn't shut off the motor, but was just sprawled over the wheel, letting the motor run, it would hardly seem possible he'd have been able to get up, close the garage doors, switch out the lights and return to his car."

She nodded slowly.

"I hadn't thought of that."

"You're expecting this friend who is going to advise you what to do?"

"Yes, he's due at any minute."

"Would you mind telling me his name?"

"I don't think that needs to enter into it."

"Is it Frank Oafley?"

"I refuse to answer."

"And you aren't going to tell the authorities about this unless your friend tells you to?"

"I'm not going to commit myself on that. I'm not putting myself entirely in this friend's hands. I'm only asking him for advice."

"But you feel that in some way the fire was started through the exhaust fumes?"

"I'm not a mechanic; I don't know anything about automobiles. I don't know anything about gas furnaces. But I do know there's a flame in that gas furnace all the time, and it seemed to me if the mixture in the carburetor had been rather rich and some gasoline fumes had been thrown into the furnace, they might have exploded and started a fire."

Mason yawned ostentatiously, glanced at Drake and said, "Well, Paul, I guess that isn't going to help us much. There's no way those exhaust fumes could have started a fire."

She looked from one to the other with disappointment on her face.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Then why was the hose running from the exhaust to the pipe in the heating outfit?"

Mason countered with another question. "There was only one light in the garage?"

"That's right—a very brilliant light which hung in the center of the garage."

"Don't you suppose it's possible what you saw was a rope instead of a hose?"

"Absolutely not—it was some sort of flexible tubing—that is, the outside of it looked like flexible rubber tubing, and it ran from the exhaust of Sam Laxter's car to a hole which had been cut in the heating pipe. It's a big heating pipe, you know, covered with asbestos. The hot air goes up through there, into Pete Laxter's bedroom and sitting room."

Mason nodded thoughtfully. "Tell you what I'll do," he said. "I'll look around a little bit and if you decide to tell your story to the authorities I may be able to help you get in touch with some of the members of the homicide squad who aren't quite as skeptical and hardboiled as Sergeant Holcomb."

"I'd like that," she said simply.

"Well," Mason told her, "we'll think it over and give you a buzz, if we get any new ideas. In the meantime, you can let us know what your friend advises you to do. If you decide to tell the authorities, let us know."

She nodded slowly. "Where can I reach you?"

Mason took Drake's arm and, by a gentle pressure, pushed him toward the door. "We'll call you back later on tonight. Simply swell of you to have talked with us," he told her.

"It wasn't an ordeal at all," she said, smiling. "I was glad to tell you all I knew."

In the corridor, the detective looked at the lawyer.

"Well," Mason said, chuckling, "the cat stays."

"So I gathered," Drake observed. "But I don't see just how you're going to play your cards."

Mason led the detective to the end of the corridor, lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

"When next I see my esteemed contemporary, Nat Shuster, I'll ask him to read Section 258 of the Probate Code, which provides, in effect, that no person convicted of murdering a decedent shall be entitled to succeed to any portion of the estate, but the portion that he would be entitled to shall go to the other heirs."

"Let's see if we figure the mechanics of this thing the same way," Drake said.

"Sure we do," Mason answered. "It's dead open and shut. The hotair gas furnace had a lot of pipes leading to different rooms in the house. Each of those pipes had a damper, so that heat could be shut off from the rooms which weren't in use. Sam Laxter committed murder by a very simple process. He drove his car into the garage, clamped flexible tubing to his exhaust pipe, tapped a hole in the pipe which sent hot air to Peter Laxter's bedroom, and closed the damper back of the place where he'd brought the tubing into the pipe. Then he sat in his car, running the motor. Deadly monoxide gas from the automobile exhaust went through the flexible tube into the heating pipe, and was carried into Peter Laxter's bedroom.

"Notice the diabolical cleverness of the thing: He had only to let his motor run in order to bring about a painless death in a room many feet removed from the motor behind locked doors. Then he set fire to the house. Carbon monoxide is normally found in the blood of persons who have expired in burning buildings. It was a beautiful case of murder, and apparently the only witness is this redheaded nurse who caught him in the act, and the only reason she's alive today is that Sam Laxter thinks she doesn't realize the significance of what she saw. Or perhaps he doesn't know she saw the tube leading from the exhaust to the pipe."

The detective pulled a stick of chewing gum from his pocket, and said, "What do we do next?"

"We get in touch with the district attorney," Mason replied. "He's always claimed that a criminal lawyer uses his intelligence to keep murderers from paying the penalties of their crime. Now I'm going to fool him by showing him a perfect murder case I've uncovered, where his own men have fallen down on the job."

"It seems like such a thin skeleton of evidence on which to hang a murder accusation," the detective objected.

"There's nothing thin about it," Mason retorted. "Notice that the time was about quarter past ten at night. It had been dark for several hours. The garage doors were closed. Sam Laxter pretended he'd been drunk when he brought his car into the garage. But he must have left the car, gone to the sliding doors, closed them, and then climbed back in the car and kept the motor running. He must have attached the flexible tubing to his exhaust pipe and then must have arranged to feed it into the pipe which ran to his grandfather's room. Then all he had to do was to start the motor. Probably he didn't need to keep it running very long. If I remember my forensic medicine correctly, the exhaust gas of motor cars produces carbon monoxide at the rate of one cubic foot per minute per twenty horsepower. The average garage can be filled with deadly fumes in five minutes from running an ordinary automobile. Exposure to an atmosphere containing as little as twotenths of one percent of the gas will cause a fatal result in time. The post mortem indications are a bright, cherryred blood. The gas affects the blood so that it can't distribute oxygen to the tissues, and these indications are customarily found in the blood of one who has died in a burning house.

"We'll hand it to Samuel C. Laxter for being damned clever. If it hadn't been for the fortuitous circumstances of that nurse happening on him, he'd have committed a perfect murder."

"You're putting this whole thing in the hands of the district attorney?" Drake ventured, his eyes rolling toward Perry Mason, his face utterly devoid of expression.

"Yes."

"Hadn't you better find out just where your client stands in this thing first?"

Mason said slowly, "No, I don't think so. If my client has done wrong, I'm not going to try and shield him. I'm employed to see that he keeps his cat, and, by God, he's going to keep that cat. If he's found money that belongs to the estate and has embezzled it, that's an entirely different matter. And don't overlook the fact that Pete Laxter may have made a valid gift of that money to Ashton before his death."

"Baloney," the detective remarked. "Pete Laxter didn't expect to die; therefore, there was no reason for him to give away his money."

"Don't be to too certain," Mason said. "He had some reason for turning his property into cash. But let's quit speculating about that, Paul. The main thing in handling a lawsuit is to keep the other man's client on the defensive, not to get yours in a position where he has to do a lot of explaining. However, I'll give Ashton a buzz and tell him that I think his cat is safe."

The detective laughed. "Talk about using a tengauge shotgun to kill a canary," he said, "we certainly are getting into a lot of ramifications in order to keep a cat alive."

"And," Mason said, "in order to show Nat Shuster that he can't cut corners with me and get away with it. Don't forget that angle, Paul."

"There's a public telephone in the drugstore around the corner," Drake said.

"Okay, Paul, let's telephone Ashton and telephone the district attorney."

They strolled around the corner. Mason dropped a dime in, dialed the number listed under the name of Peter Laxter, and asked for Charles Ashton. It took several minutes before he heard Ashton's rasping voice on the telephone.

"This is Perry Mason talking, Ashton. I don't think you need to worry any more about Clinker."

"Why not?" Ashton asked.

"I think that Sam Laxter is going to have his hands full," Mason explained. "I think he'll be kept quite well occupied. Don't say anything just yet to any of the servants, but I think there's a possibility Sam Laxter may be summoned to the district attorney's office to answer some questions."

The caretaker's voice was harshly strident. "Can you tell me what about?"

"No. I've told you everything I can. Just keep it under your hat."

There was growing uneasiness manifest in the tones of Ashton's voice. "Wait a minute, Mr. Mason. I don't want you to go too far in this thing. There are some reasons why I don't want the district attorney messing around asking questions."

Mason's tone was one of finality. "You employed me to see your cat wasn't poisoned. I'm going to do just that."

"But this is something else," Ashton said. "I want to see you about it."

"See me tomorrow then. In the meantime, give Clinker a dish of cream with my compliments."

"But I must see you, if the district attorney's going to start an investigation."

"Okay, see me tomorrow, then," Mason told him, and hung up. He made a wry grimace as he turned from the telephone booth and faced the detective.

"These damn cat cases," he said, "are more bother than they're worth. Let's go hunt up the district attorney."

"Sound as though he had a guilty conscience?" Drake asked.

Mason shrugged his shoulders. "My clients never have guilty consciences, Paul. And, after all, don't forget my real client is the cat."

Drake chuckled and said, "Sure, I understand, but just as a side line I sure would like to know where Ashton got that money… Listen, Perry, it's starting to rain. I'd prefer to use my car if we're going places."

Mason, thumbing through the telephone directory for the residence number of the district attorney, said, "Sorry, Paul, we're going places, but you won't have a chance to get your car—we'll be moving too fast… I'll get out my convertible. We can use that."

Drake groaned. "I was afraid of that. You drive like hell on wet roads."