The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

Chapter 7

Perry Mason, freshly shaved, paused at Della Street 's desk to smile down at her.

"Feeling all right after your late hours?" he asked.

"Like a million," she said. "I see the papers play up Hartley Basset's murder, but say nothing about Brunold."

"The newspaper boys don't know anything about Brunold," he told her.

"Why?"

"Because Holcomb didn't take him down to headquarters. Brunold was taken to some outlying precinct where they could sweat him."

"Wasn't there anything you could do about that?"

"I might have got a habeas corpus, but I didn't want to show my hand—yet. I don't know the facts. Brunold may be better in than out. The police would have all they wanted out of him before I could have had the writ issued."

"How about Mrs. Basset?"

"I telephoned her as soon as I got to my apartment."

"Talk with her?"

"No. She staged hysterics after I left. Holcomb couldn't get anywhere with her. The son called a doctor and then he pulled a fast one. He said he was taking her to a hospital, but she didn't show up at any of the hospitals. The boy won't tell where she is. He says he'll produce her whenever it's necessary."

"He wouldn't even tell you where she was?"

"No."

"How did it happen Holcomb let him get away with that?"

"Holcomb came rushing up to get Brunold. That left young Basset his chance. He took it. But it's a cinch the dicks were watching the place. They know where she is. They may not be letting young Basset know it, but they do."

"Then," she said, "all Dick Basset did was to fix it so you couldn't reach his mother, but the police could. Is that it?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Then Mrs. Basset doesn't know about Brunold's arrest?"

"Probably not."

"When will she find it out?"

"When she comes down to earth and acts human. I told young Basset to have his mother get in touch with me at the earliest moment; that it was a matter of the gravest importance."

"And she hasn't telephoned?"

"No."

"But couldn't you have found her?"

"What's the use? It's a cinch the police have her under surveillance. If I had gone trying to force my way into the case, they'd have had me in a tough spot, and I may not be in any too good a spot as it is."

"Why?"

"My fingerprints may be on that murder gun."

She made little designs on the corner of her shorthand notebook with a sharp pencil.

"This is the most peculiar murder case you ever got mixed up in," she said. "We haven't any clients in this murder case yet—that is, we haven't any retainer except Brunold's."

He nodded slowly and said, "I wish I had known where I could have reached Bertha McLane last night. She didn't leave us any address, did she?"

"No, only the boy—Harry McLane—and that, I think, is the number of a pool room."

"It probably would be. See if you can get him on the telephone. Ring the number he gave, and see if they can give any other number where we can reach him right away."

She nodded, made a note on her shorthand notebook and asked, "Was there anything else?"

"Yes," he told her, "ring up the Basset residence. Tell Dick Basset I'm still trying to get in touch with his mother and that it's very important. And, by the way, see if you can…"

The telephone bell rang. She picked up the receiver, said, "Yes, who is it, please?" listened a moment, then cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and stared at Perry Mason with eyes that held a glint of amusement.

"Know where your car was found?" she inquired.

"No. Where?"

"Parked in front of the police station. The traffic department's on the line. They say the car has been in front of a fire plug ever since two o'clock this morning. They're inquiring whether it had been stolen."

Perry Mason winced.

"That," he said, "is once they've got me dead to rights. Tell them no, that the car wasn't stolen, that I must have inadvertently left it parked in front of the fire plug."

She took her hand away from the mouthpiece, passed the information into the telephone, then once more cupped her hand over the mouthpiece.

"And," she said, "it's in a twenty minute parking zone. They've been putting tags on the car at twenty minute intervals ever since nine o'clock this morning."

Mason said. "Give one of the boys a blank check. Send him down to square the thing and pick up the car. Tell him not to do any talking. Can you imagine the crust of the little devil? Taking the car down and parking it directly in front of the police station!"

"Do you think she did it, or do you think the cops picked her up and had her drive down to the station?"

"I don't know."

"If they did," Della Street went on, "it's a great joke on you, because they parked it in front of a fire plug and in a twenty minute parking zone, knowing that you wouldn't dare to claim the car had been stolen—not after you gave the girl permission to drive it away."

He nodded and strode toward his private office.

"It's all right," he said. "Let them laugh. The bird who laughs last is the one who laughs longest… Have you got those eyes?"

"You mean the eyes that Paul Drake had for us?"

"Yes."

She opened a drawer in her desk and took out the box of eyes.

"It sure gave me the willies," she said, "to look at them."

Mason opened the box, picked up a couple of eyes, slipped each into a vest pocket and said, "Put the other four in the safe. Keep them locked up where no one else can find them. These eyes are just a little secret that you and I are going to share between us."

"What are you going to do with them?"

"I don't know. It depends on what Brunold's next move is."

"What should his next move be?"

"Telephone me and ask me to act as his lawyer on the murder charge."

Her forehead showed a pucker of worry.

"How about the way you're getting mixed into this, Chief?" she inquired solicitously. "Will Sergeant Holcomb be back with a warrant?"

"Not unless they identify my fingerprints on the gun, and they can't do that until after they've taken my fingerprints. They haven't any record of them down at headquarters. They'll probably be peeved about Hazel Fenwick disappearing, but they won't have anything to pin a charge on. We've got a new district attorney now, and I think he's inclined to be a squareshooter. He wants to get convictions when he's certain he's prosecuting guilty people, but he doesn't want to convict innocent ones."

"You want me to write up the things Brunold said last night?"

He shook his head as he passed into his inner office.

"No," he called over his shoulder, "let that go. We'll see whom we're representing before we take any definite steps." He dropped into his big swivel chair, picked up the newspaper and was reading the account of Basset's murder when the telephone rang and Della Street said, "I got Harry McLane on the telephone. He was very independent, but I got a number out of him where I could talk with his sister. I talked with her, and she says that she must see you right away. She's bringing her brother with her, if she can get him to come. She said that she'd wait all day in your reception room if she had to, but that she simply had to see you."

"Did she say what about?" he asked.

"No, she didn't say… I've sent one of the boys down to pick up your car. Paul Drake telephoned and wants to see you at your convenience."

"Tell Paul to come on in," Mason said. "Let me know as soon as Bertha McLane gets here. If the police haven't got the Fenwick girl, she'll probably call up sometime today. She may use a phoney name. So if any mysterious woman tries to get in touch with me, be sure that you take the message and get the lowdown on it. You can be tactful but insistent.

"Tell Paul Drake to come directly to my private office. I'll let him in. When I buzz for you, come in and take notes."

He slipped the receiver back into place, read half a column in the newspaper, and then heard a tapping on the door which led to the corridor. He opened it, and Paul Drake, his face set in its fixed expression of droll humor, entered the room.

Mason looked at him shrewdly and said, "You look as though you'd had a good night's sleep last night."

"Well," Paul Drake told him, "I got darn near twenty minutes."

"Where did you get it?" Mason asked, pressing the buzzer summoning Della Street.

"In the barber's chair this morning. I wish you'd get your brainstorms during office hours. You always want your rush stuff put through at night."

"I can't help it," Perry Mason told him, "if murderers insist on claiming their victims after office hours. Did you find out anything?"

"I found out lots," Drake said. "I had twenty operatives working on the thing at one time, chasing down different angles. I hope you've got a client with long purse strings."

"I haven't, but I'm going to have. What's the dirt?"

"It's quite a story," Drake told him; "one of those human interest yarns."

Mason indicated the big overstuffed leather chair.

"Sit down and spill it."

Paul Drake jackknifed his long length into the chair, sliding around and sitting sideways, so that his back rested against one of the arms, while his knees draped over the other arm. Della Street came in, smiled at the detective and sat down.

"It goes back to one of these romantic betrayals of the midVictorian Era."

"Meaning what?"

Drake lit a cigarette, puffed out a cloud of smoke, waved his hand in an inclusive gesture and said, "Picture to yourself a beautiful farming community, prosperous, happy and narrowminded—accent on the narrowminded."

"Why the accent?" Mason inquired.

"Because it was that sort of a community. Everyone knew what everyone else did. If a girl turned out in a new dress, there were a dozen different tongues to wag in speculation on where she got it."

"And a fur coat?" the lawyer asked.

Paul Drake threw up his hands in a gesture of mock dismay and said, "Oh, my God! Why blacken a girl's character that way?"

Mason chuckled and said, "Go on."

"A girl lived there named Sylvia Berkley—rather a pretty girl—trusting, simple, straightforward, cleareyed."

"Why all the niceties of description?" the lawyer asked.

"Because," Drake said seriously, "I'm for that kid in a big way. I've got a description of her. I've even got photographs."

He searched in his pocket, brought out an envelope, took from it a photograph and handed it over to Perry Mason. "If you think it didn't take engineering to dig out that photograph at four o'clock in the morning, you've got another think coming."

"Where did you get it?"

"From the local paper."

"She made the headlines then?"

"Yes; she disappeared."

"Abducted, or something?"

"No one ever found out. She just disappeared."

The lawyer looked searchingly at the detective and said, "You've got the story behind that disappearance, haven't you?"

"Yes.

"All right, go ahead and tell it to me."

"If I seem to get romantic or poetic or something, it's because I've been up all night," Drake told him.

"Never mind that; get down to brass tacks."

"There was a traveling man who was selling dry goods. His name was Pete Brunold."

"He had one eye?" Mason inquired.

"No, he had two eyes at that time. He picked up his artificial eye later on. That's one of the reasons I'm a little mushy about them."

"Where does it start?" Mason asked.

"I guess it starts with Sylvia Basset's folks. They had ideas. You know, the type that stood so straight they leaned over backwards. Traveling salesmen were slickers from the city. When Brunold started to take the girl out, the folks hit the ceiling.

"There was a little movie house in the burg. You know, there weren't any radios in those days. The movies were just graduating from the galloping cowboy stuff. The town wasn't big enough to get many of the old stock melodramas, and…"

"Forget the community," Mason said impatiently. "Did Brunold marry her?"

Drake, in his slow drawl, said, "I can't forget the community without forgetting the story. No, he didn't marry her, and, brother, this is my yarn and I'm going to stick to it."

The lawyer signed, gave Della Street a half humorous glance and said, "Okay, go ahead with the lecture."

"Well, you know how a highstrung girl does things. The town thought she was going to hell fast. Her folks wanted her to give Brunold the bum's rush. She stuck up for him, and I guess perhaps she had ideas buzzing around in her bonnet—ideas of living her own life. You know, Perry, it was along about that time that girls were just commencing to break away from the kind of stuff that had been drilled into their noodles for generations."

Perry Mason yawned ostentatiously.

"Oh, hell," the detective said, "you're taking all the romance out of my young life—just when I was beginning to think my youth hadn't entirely vanished."

"It isn't youthful romance, it's the mush of senility," Mason said. "For God's sake, get it through your head that I've got a murder case on my hands and I want facts. You give me the facts and I'll hang plenty of romance on them when I dish them out to the jury."

"The hell of it is," Drake said, turning to Della Street, "that when the Chief gets this sketch he's going to feel just the same way about it I do. He's like a bride's biscuit—he puts up a hardboiled exterior, but when you bust through him he's all soft and mushy on the inside."

"Halfbaked is the word you're groping for," Mason told him. "Come on, Paul; let's have the stuff."

"One day," Drake said, "Brunold got a letter from Sylvia. That letter told him they couldn't put off getting married any longer."

The half quizzical smile faded from Perry Mason's face. The impatience left his eyes. His voice showed quick sympathy.

"Like that?" he asked.

"Like that," the detective said.

"What did Brunold do?"

"Brunold got the letter, okay."

"And ducked out?" Mason asked, in cold, hard accents.

"No, he didn't. It was a small burg and he didn't dare to send a telegram because he didn't want the telegraph operator to know anything, but he hopped a train and started for Sylvia. That's where fate took a hand. Those were the days when railroad beds were like you found them. My God, I can remember one time when I took a trip on one of those hick lines that I tossed around in an upper berth like a bunch of popcorn in a corn popper on a hot stove…"

"The train was wrecked," the lawyer interrupted. "I suppose Brunold was hurt."

"Cracked his dome, punctured his eye, and gave him a loss of memory. The doctors took the eye out, put him in a hospital and gave him a nurse. I found the hospital records and was lucky enough to locate the nurse. She remembered the case because when Brunold got his memory back she surmised something of what must have been in the back of his mind.

"He put in a persontoperson call for Sylvia and got a report back that Sylvia had disappeared. Brunold was like a crazy man. He had a relapse and was delirious. He talked in his delirium. The nurse figured it was a professional secret and she wouldn't tell me much, but I think she knew."

"Sylvia?" Mason asked, and there was no longer any banter in his tone.

"Sylvia," the detective said, "had been fed up for months with stories about the city slickers, about the women who paid and paid and paid. It was the age of literature that got fat on putting erring daughters out in snow storms. Sylvia's parents had been good at dishing out this sort of dope. When Brunold didn't show up, Sylvia figured there was just one reason. So she busted her little savings bank and beat it. No one knew how she left town. There was a little junction on another road three miles away. The kid must have hoofed it and got a milk train. She went to the city."

"How do you know?" Mason asked.

"I got a break," Drake told him. "I'd like to make you think it was just highclass detective work, but when she got married, and in connection with the boy's adoption, she gave some data that enabled me to check back."

"She married Basset?" Mason asked.

"That's right. She came to the city and took the name of Sylvia Loring. She worked as a stenographer as long as she could. After the child was born she went back to the office. They'd held the place open for her. She worked there for years. The boy kept getting to be more and more of an expense. He needed an education. She met Hartley Basset. He was a client in the law office. His intentions were honorable. She didn't love him—at least I don't figure it that way. She'd never loved anyone except Brunold. She figured Brunold had taken a walkout powder, so she was off of men."

"And she made Basset adopt the boy?"

"That's right she didn't marry him until he'd legally adopted the boy. The boy took Basset's name and apparently proceeded to hate his stepfather with a bitter hatred, probably because of the way Basset treated Sylvia."

"What was wrong with it?" Mason asked.

"All I know is servants' gossip," Drake said, "but servants' gossip can be pretty reliable at times. Basset was a bachelor. He hadn't been an easy man to work for. His idea of marriage was that a wife was a species of ornament in public and a servant in private."

"And," Mason said slowly, "by reason of the adoption, Dick Basset would have inherited a share of Hartley Basset's property."

Drake nodded his head slowly and said, "That's the way Edith Brite figures it. She's a housekeeper. Only she doesn't figure there was any idea of gain in connection with it. She feels the boy was doing his mother a good turn."

"She thinks Dick killed him?" the lawyer asked.

"That's right. I had to get her crocked, but when she got in vino veritas she babbled a lot. Sylvia had been through hell. The boy knew it. Hartley Basset was just one of those things. She thinks the boy bumped him off."

Della Street said, "Wait a minute, Paul, you haven't finished with the romance. How about Brunold? Did he find her or did she find him?"

"He found her. He'd been searching ever since he left the hospital. He didn't know how to go about such things and for a while Sylvia had kept herself pretty much under cover."

Perry Mason hooked his thumbs through the arm holes of his vest and started pacing the floor.

"Did Dick know Brunold had found his mother and know who Brunold was?" he asked.

Drake shrugged his shoulders. "I'm a detective," he said, "not a mind reader. Your guess is as good as mine. Apparently Sylvia Basset figured she'd made her bed and was going to lie in it. Brunold wanted her to leave, that's a cinch. The fact that she didn't walk out right then and there shows that something was holding her. From the slant I can get on Hartley Basset's character, it may have been his threat to set aside the adoption proceedings on the ground of fraud, brand Dick as illegitimate, make a big stink generally. Or it may have been that he wouldn't give her a divorce and she wouldn't join Brunold unless she could marry him, on account of the kid."

Mason, still pacing the floor, said, "Where's Mrs. Basset now?"

"She ducked out and went to a hotel somewhere."

"See if you can find her," Mason said. "You shouldn't have any great difficulty. She's the type who would go to one of the better class hotels. There weren't a great number of unescorted women who registered at the better class hotels after midnight last night. You've got pictures of her, I presume."

"Oh, sure."

"All right, run her down."

"This other stuff going to help you?" Drake asked.

"Very much, I think," Mason told him.

A buzzer gave the signal that Della Street was wanted in the outer office. She glanced at Mason, who nodded.

"Were the eyes okay?" Paul Drake asked.

"I think they'll do the work all right, although I'm afraid we got them a little late."

"I was wondering about that when I heard about the bloodshot eye that was clutched in Hartley Basset's right hand."

Mason said cheerfully, "Oh, well, it'll all come out in the wash."

Drake uncoiled himself from the chair and moved toward the exit door.

"You don't want anything else except putting a finger on Sylvia Basset, is that right?"

"That's all for the present. And that was good work, Paul, tracing that stuff down with the limited time you had."

"There wasn't so much of it," the detective said, "except a lot of detail work. The newspaper men had pumped the servants dry. Brunold had left a wide open trail. It was a cinch to chase him down, and, in the adoption proceedings, Sylvia Basset had given the true date and location of the boy's birth. By that time, I guess, she figured it didn't matter much. It happened that I was able to locate the doctor, and the doctor put me in touch with the nurse. The nurse remembered that there had been a pile of love letters, tied with the conventional ribbon, in the girl's suitcase. They'd been addressed to Sylvia Berkley, and she'd read of the disappearance of Sylvia Berkley in the newspapers."

"And kept her mouth shut?" Mason inquired.

The detective nodded. "Nurses," he said, "see quite a few of those cases. They don't see as many of them now as they did twenty years ago."

"Has she ever got in touch with her folks?" Mason asked.

"I don't know. I haven't been able to find that out."

"Are her folks living?"

"I'll have the dope on that this afternoon. I didn't know just how much attention you wanted to attract, so I'm making my inquiries about them in rather a roundabout manner."

"Good work, Paul," the lawyer said.

The door from the outer office opened and Della Street walked through, closing the door carefully behind her. She went to Perry Mason's desk and stood waiting.

The detective said, "Okay, Perry, I'll get that stuff for you early this afternoon. If I get the party located in one of the hotels, I'll give you a ring. I should be able to cover the principal ones within the next half hour."

He opened the door and took the precaution of thrusting out his head and looking up and down the corridor before he stepped out into the hallway, letting the door click shut behind him.

Perry Mason turned to Della Street.

"Well?" he asked.

"You've got to help them," she said.

"You mean Brunold and Mrs. Basset?"

"Yes."

"We don't know the facts yet."

"You mean about the murder?"

"Yes."

"Apparently," Della Street said slowly, "she's never had the breaks. The cards in life have been stacked against her. Why not give her a break now?"

"Perhaps I will," Mason said slowly, and then added. "if she'll let me."

Della Street motioned toward the outer office.

"The McLanes are out there," she said.

"Harry and his sister?"

"Yes."

Mason nodded his head. "Show them in, Della."