The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

Chapter 8

Bertha McLane started talking before Perry Mason had said more than a courteous "Good morning."

"We read about it in the papers. Is it going to make any difference?"

"It will make this much difference," Mason said slowly; "the estate will be handled by an administrator or an executor. If Sylvia Basset handles the estate, she'll be friendly. If some other person handles it, the probabilities are there will be trouble. We can't square it now. If there should be a will contest, or something, and a temporary executor should discover the shortage…"

Her eyes had grown wider as he talked. Now she interrupted him, saying, "Good heavens, don't you know what happened?"

Perry Mason stopped talking and stared steadily at her.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice and manner wary.

She turned to the boy.

"Tell him, Harry."

Harry McLane said, "I paid him off."

Mason stared thoughtfully at the boy.

"Did what?"

"Paid him off."

"Paid who off?"

"Hartley Basset."

"How much?"

"Every damned cent—three thousand nine hundred and fortytwo dollars and sixtythree cents."

"Did you," asked Perry Mason, "get a receipt?"

"I didn't need a receipt. I got back the forged notes. That was all the receipt I needed."

"When did you pay him off?"

"Last night."

"At exactly what time?"

"I don't know. It was around eleven o'clock, I guess, or perhaps a little later."

Mason tried to hold the boy's eyes, but McLane looked toward his sister, then out of the window.

"It's all okay now," he said. "We just thought we'd let you know. Come on, Sis, I guess there's nothing else we can do here."

"Wait a minute," Mason said. "Look at me."

Young McLane turned his eyes to the lawyer.

"Now keep looking at me," Mason said. "Don't move your eyes from mine. Now tell me. You read the newspapers this morning."

"Yes, that's why we came here—to find out if it would make any difference."

"Just how long," the lawyer asked slowly, "before Hartley Basset was murdered did you pay that money to him?"

"I don't know, because I don't know when he was murdered."

"Suppose that he was murdered at around midnight?"

"I must have paid it to him a little while before he was murdered, then… Maybe someone stole the money from him."

"You paid him in cash?"

"Cold, hard cash."

"Where did you get the money?"

"That's my business."

"Did you win it gambling?"

"What do you care where I got it? It isn't important."

"It may," Mason told him, "be very important. Do you realize that… But never mind. Let me ask you a few questions first. Hartley Basset gave you back the forged notes?"

"Yes."

"These forged notes were the only things that he held against you in the line of evidence, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Now, where did he get those forged notes from? In other words, where were they?… No, young man, don't look away. Keep your eyes right on mine… Where did Hartley Basset get those forged notes?"

"From a locked note file that he had on his desk."

"Where was the key to that file?"

"On his key ring, of course."

"Do you realize," Mason asked, "that when Basset's body was found and searched there wasn't more than twentyfive dollars in actual currency in his pockets and that the police haven't discovered any large sum of money either in the safe or in the room where he was murdered?"

"Perhaps," Harry McLane suggested, "the motive of the murder was robbery."

Perry Mason thumped the desk slowly with his fist, giving emphasis to his words.

"Young man," he said slowly, "do you realize that there wasn't anything on God's green earth to have prevented you getting admission to the room where Hartley Basset was working by telling him that you had come to pay off the money, that, when you were once in that room you could have killed Hartley Basset, that you could have taken the key from Basset's key ring, opened the note file on his desk—a file with which you are thoroughly familiar because of your employment with Basset, taken out those forged notes which represented the only evidence against you, placed a fake suicide note in the typewriter, and left the house… No, don't interrupt—and keep looking at me… That the only thing on earth that will prevent you from having to answer questions to the police predicated upon such a theory of what might have happened, is an ability to show exactly where you got the money that you paid Hartley Basset and being able to account for your whereabouts at the exact time the murder was committed?"

"Why!" Bertha McLane exclaimed. "You're accusing Harry of murder! Harry wouldn't ever have done…"

"Shut up," Mason said, without looking at her. "Let's hear Harry's story first."

Harry jumped up from the chair, turned and walked toward the window.

"Aw, nuts," he called over his shoulder. "You know who killed the old buzzard. You ain't going to make me the goat."

"Come back here," Mason said.

"The hell I will!" McLane said, standing with his back to them, looking out of the window. "I don't have to come back and sit in a chair and let you bore our eyes into mine and frame me, so you can get the breaks for some other client of yours."

"Can you," Mason inquired, his face flushing, "show where you got the money that you paid to Hartley Basset?"

"No… Perhaps I could, but I'm not going to."

"You've got to."

"I don't have to."

"I've got to be able to give the police that evidence, Harry, or they're going to arrest you."

"Let them arrest me, then."

"It's more serious than that. If you can't show that you paid this money and secured legitimate possession of those notes, the police are going to think that you secured possession of them illegally."

"To hell with the police."

"It isn't what the police think; it's what a jury's going to think. Remember, young man, that the evidence would show that you were an embezzler. The prosecution would claim Basset was going to send you to jail—you killed him to keep him from doing so."

"Aw, nuts," Harry McLane said again, but kept looking out of the window.

Mason shrugged his shoulders and turned toward Bertha McLane.

"I'm simply telling you," he said.

"Do the police know about those embezzlements?"

"No, but they will."

Harry McLane turned from the window.

"Listen," he said, "don't let this guy kid you, Sis. He knows who killed Basset, or, if he doesn't, he's a damn fool, but he'd like to make a nice fee for himself putting me on the spot. We're finished with this guy right now. The more you let him talk to me the more of a frameup he's going to pull on me."

Mason said slowly, "Listen, Harry, you've pulled that line two or three times. You know it's a lie. But if you've got any sense, you must know that you've got to have the answers to these questions before the police find out about you."

"Don't worry about the police," the boy sneered. "You tend to your knitting and I'll tend to mine."

"You paid Basset in cash?" Mason asked.

"Yes."

"What did he do with the cash?"

"Put it in the pigskin wallet he carries in his coat pocket. You ask his wife about it. She'll tell you he always had the wallet in his pocket."

"It wasn't there when the police found the body, Harry."

"I can't help that. It was there when I paid him the money."

"And you didn't get a receipt?"

"No."

"There was no one present?"

"No, of course not."

"And you can't tell us where you got the money?"

"I can, but I won't."

"Does anyone know that you had that money?"

"That's none of your business."

Perry Mason's telephone rang. He scooped up the receiver. Della Street said, "Paul Drake's on the line. He's got some information that I think you should have."

Mason said, "Yes, Paul. What is it?"

The detective's voice said, "I'm going to talk low, Perry, because I don't want anyone else in the office to hear what I'm telling you, and telephone receivers sometimes play tricks when a chap talks too loud… Now, listen… The police are getting ready to pull a whole bunch of fast ones. They've found out a lot of things. Your man, Brunold, has been spilling information. They've had experts check up on the typewritten note that was in the machine on Basset's desk.

"Now, you know typewriting is just as distinctive as handwriting. The police criminologists say the message on the piece of paper which was in the typewriter on Basset's desk hadn't been written on that typewriter. They've been looking the house over, to find the typewriter that it was written on. They located it, in Mrs. Basset's bedroom. It's a Remington Portable that she used for personal correspondence.

"What's more, the experts can tell, by the even impression the letters made, that the thing was written by someone who used a touch system—a professional stenographer. You remember what I told you about Mrs. Basset having been a secretary."

Perry Mason frowned thoughtfully at the telephone transmitter.

"Have you located her yet, Paul?" he asked.

"Not yet, but I picked up this information from one of the boys who had been in touch with a newspaper man. I thought you should have it."

"Yes," Mason said, "I'm glad you gave it to me. Try and locate her just as quickly as you can."

He dropped the receiver back into place and turned to stare moodily at young McLane.

"Harry," he said, "you told me that someone who was very close to Hartley Basset was going to intercede to keep you from going to jail."

"Oh, forget it!" McLane said.

Mason turned to Bertha McLane and said, "I gave you a paper with my telephone number on it—the number of my apartment, where you could reach me after office hours. What did you do with it?"

Harry McLane took a quick step forward and said, "Don't…"

"Gave it to Harry," she said.

Harry McLane sighed. "You didn't have to tell him that," he said.

Mason turned back to the young man. "What did you do with it, Harry?"

"Kept it in my pocket for a while."

"And then what?"

"I don't know. Why the hell should I remember all those little things? I threw it away, I guess. I didn't have any more need to call you after I paid the old buzzard off. There wasn't any reason why I should carry your telephone number around with me. What did you want me to do, seal it up in a pickle jar so it would keep?"

"That piece of paper," Mason said, "was found in the corridor in front of Mrs. Basset's bedroom."

Sheer surprise twisted young McLane's face into a spasm of expression. "It couldn't have been," he said, then, after a moment, with a look of cunning in his eyes, said, "Well, what if it was?"

"When I went out there," Mason went on, entirely disregarding young McLane's comment, "Mrs. Basset tried to intercede for you."

"Did she?" Harry asked tonelessly.

"Did you know she was going to do that?"

"Of course not. I'm not a mind reader."

"Mrs. Basset likes you, Harry?"

"How do I know?"

"Did you see her last night, before you saw Hartley Basset?"

Harry McLane hesitated and said, "Why?"

"You might as well tell me that," Mason said. "The police certainly can find out that much. The servants were in the house and…"

"I'm not going to tell you any more about her. Leave her out of it."

"Had you ever been in her room?"

"Sure, on business."

"Was there a typewriter in her room?"

"I think so."

"A Remington Portable?"

"I guess so."

"Had you ever used it?"

"Sometimes when I was working there and she had social letters to get out she'd dictate them to me."

"Did Hartley Basset suggest that she do that?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do, Harry. Tell us the truth."

"Hartley Basset didn't know anything about it."

"Why did you do it, if it wasn't a part of the duties of your employment?"

"Because she was a good scout and I liked her, and because old Basset was grinding her down."

"So you sympathized with her?"

"Yes."

"And wrote letters for her?"

"Yes, sometimes she'd have neuritis in her right arm."

"Was there a portable typewriter on the desk in front of Hartley Basset when you called on him?"

"Sure. He had his own typewriter there that he makes notes on. Sometimes he dictates stuff and sometimes he pounds it out himself."

"He doesn't have a touch system, does he—just a twofinger huntandpeck system?"

"That's all."

"But you have a touch system?"

"Of course."

"Did you know," Perry Mason asked, staring steadily at Harry McLane, "that the note that was found in the typewriter on Basset's desk, stating that he was going to commit suicide, was not, in fact, written on that typewriter at all, but was written on the typewriter which was in Mrs. Basset's room, and that it was written by a professional typist who used the touch system?"

Harry McLane flung himself toward the exit door.

"Come on, Bertha," he said; "let's get the hell out of here."

She got to her feet, stood staring at Perry Mason, then at her brother.

"Harry," she said, "you know Mr. Mason is trying to help you, and…"

"Aw, nuts, don't be a sucker. I only came here because you wanted me to. He's looking for a fall guy, I tell you."

Bertha McLane turned to Perry Mason and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Mason, that Harry feels that way. I hope you'll accept my apology…"

"Apology, hell!" Harry McLane interrupted. "Don't be a sucker!"

He pushed his way over toward Mason's desk and said, "You've been asking a lot of questions. Now let me ask you some. Are you representing Brunold?"

"Yes," Mason said, "I'm representing him. I presume it amounts to that."

"And Mrs. Basset?"

"She has consulted me."

"And Dick Basset?"

"Not directly."

"But through his mother?"

"Perhaps, yes," Mason said, his eyes narrowed to mere slits as he watched McLane's face.

"There you are," McLane said, turning triumphantly to his sister. "Are you going to sit there and let him make a goat of me? I told you we were foolish to come here in the first place."

"Mr. Mason," she said, "can't you…"

Harry McLane grabbed her by the arm and pushed her toward the door.

"You claim to care something for me," he said, "but you're putting a rope necktie around my neck if you keep on talking to this bird."

Her face showed conflicting emotions.

Mason said slowly, "Harry, you still haven't told me where you got the money that you claim you used to pay off Hartley Basset. You still haven't told me whether anyone knows you were in possession of that money. You still haven't told me where you were when Basset was murdered, and you haven't told me what was to have kept you from killing Basset, opening the file where the notes were kept and taking out those forged notes."

Harry McLane jerked open the door which led to the corridor. He paused in the doorway to say, "I know enough about legal ethics to know that you can't ever tell anyone anything that I've told you. If you tell the cops that I was out at Basset's place I'll have you disbarred and if you keep your mouth shut I won't have to tell anybody anything."

"But Mrs. Basset," Bertha McLane said, "knows, Harry, that you…"

He grabbed her arms and pushed her through the doorway.

"And Colemar knows of that shortage," Mason said, "to say nothing of Mrs. Basset. Don't forget that the police…"

"Aw, nuts to you," McLane said, and kicked the door shut.

Mason sat perfectly still, his eyes thoughtful, his fingers still making drumming noises upon the edge of the desk. The telephone rang three times before he changed his position. Then he swung abruptly about in his swivel chair, picked up the receiver and heard Paul Drake's voice saying, "My men have found her, Perry. She's at the Ambassador Hotel, registered under the name of Sylvia Lorton, and there are three police detectives watching her suite. They tailed her there last night. They've also got one of their operatives on duty at the switchboard so they can listen in on any calls that go through the switchboard."

Perry Mason squinted his eyes thoughtfully.

"I presume," he said, "that if I should go over to see her, the detectives would close in on her and make the arrest right now."

"Sure," Paul Drake said cheerfully. "All they're doing is giving her plenty of rope, hoping that she'll hang herself. They'll try to stampede her into making a break if she keeps sitting tight. But, with her son calling her and spilling information over the telephone, the cops will have her where they want her by midnight."

Perry Mason said slowly, "Paul, I've got to see that woman without the police knowing it."

"Not a chance in a million," Drake told him. "You know the game the police are playing as well as I do."

Perry Mason said slowly, "Have you made a check on the location of the fire escapes, Paul?"

"No, I haven't been out there myself. I'm taking reports from a man who's on the ground. Do you want him to do it?"

"No," Mason said. "Get your hat on, Paul, and meet me at the elevator. We're going out together."

The detective groaned and said over the telephone, "I knew you were going to get me in jail sooner or later."

"Any time I get you in," Perry Mason said grimly, "I'll get you out. Get your hat, Paul."

He slammed the receiver back into place.