The Case Of The Howling Dog

E S Gardner - Perry Mason 04 - Howling Dog

CHAPTER I

DELLA STREET held open the door to the inner office, and spoke in the tone which a woman instinctively uses in speaking to a child or a very sick man.

"Go right in, Mr. Cartright," she said. "Mr. Mason will see you."

A broad-shouldered, rather heavy-set man, of about thirty-two, with haunted brown eyes, walked into the office, and stared at the sober countenance of Perry Mason.

"You're Perry Mason," he asked, "the lawyer?"

Mason nodded.

"Sit down," he said.

The man dropped into the chair Mason had indicated with a gesture, mechanically reached for a package of cigarettes, took one out, conveyed it to his lips, and had the package half way back to his pocket before he thought to offer one to Perry Mason.

The hand that held the extended package of cigarettes trembled, and the lawyer's knowing eyes stared for a moment at the quivering hand before he shook his head.

"No," he said, "thank you, I've got my own brand."

The man nodded, hurriedly put the package of cigarettes back in his pocket, struck a match, and casually leaned forward, so that his elbow was resting on the arm of the chair, steadying the hand which held the match as he lit the cigarette.

"My secretary," said Perry Mason, in a calm tone of voice, "told me that you wanted to see me about a dog and about a will."

The man nodded. "A dog and a will," he repeated mechanically.

"Well," said Perry Mason, "let's talk about the will first. I don't know much about dogs."

Cartright nodded. His hungry brown eyes were fastened upon Perry Mason with the expression of a very sick man looking at a competent physician.

Perry Mason took a pad of yellow foolscap from a drawer in his desk, picked up a desk pen, and said: "What's your name?"

"Arthur Cartright."

"Age?"

"Thirty-two."

"Residence?"

"4893 Milpas Drive."

"Married or single?"

"Do we need to go into that?"

Perry Mason held the pen poised above the foolscap while he raised his eyes to regard Cartright with steady appraisal.

"Yes," he said.

Cartright held the cigarette over an ashtray, and tapped the ashes from the end with a hand that shook as though with the ague.

"I don't think it makes any difference in the kind of a will I'm drawing up," he said.

"I've got to know," Perry Mason told him.

"But I tell you it won't make any difference, on account of the way I'm leaving my property."

Perry Mason said nothing, but the calm insistence of his very silence drove the other to speech.

"Yes," he said.

"Wife's name?"

"Paula Cartright, age twenty-seven."

"Residing with you?" asked Mason.

"No."

"Where does she reside?"

"I don't know," said the man.

Perry Mason hesitated a moment, and his quiet, patient eyes surveyed the haggard countenance of his client. Then he spoke soothingly.

"Very well," he said, "let's find out a little more about what you want to do with your property before we go back to that. Have you any children?"

"No."

"How did you want to leave your property?"

"Before we go into that," said Cartright, speaking rapidly, "I want to know if a will is valid no matter how a man dies."

Perry Mason nodded his head, wordlessly.

"Suppose," said Cartright, "a man dies on the gallows or in the electric chair? You know, suppose he's executed for murder, then what happens to his will?"

"It makes no difference how a man dies; his will is not affected," Mason said.

"How many witnesses do I need to a will?"

"Two witnesses under certain circumstances," Mason said, "and none under others."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean that if a will is drawn up in typewriting, and you sign it, there must be two witnesses to your signature, but in this state, if a will is written entirely in your handwriting, including date and signature, and there is no other writing or printing on the sheet of paper, save your own handwriting, it does not need to have any witnesses to the signature. Such a will is valid and binding."

Arthur Cartright sighed, and his sigh seemed to be one of relief. When he spoke, his voice was more quiet, less jerky.

"Well," he said, "that seems to clear that point up."

"To whom did you want your property to go?" asked Perry Mason.

"To Mrs. Clinton Foley, living at 4889 Milpas Drive."

Perry Mason raised his eyebrows.

"A neighbor?" he asked.

"A neighbor," said Cartright, in the tone of voice of one who wishes to discourage comment.

"Very well," said Perry Mason, and then added: "Remember, Cartright, you're talking to a lawyer. Don't have secrets from your lawyer. Tell me the truth. I won't betray your confidences."

"Well," Cartright said impatiently, "I'm telling you everything, ain't I?"

Perry Mason's eyes and voice were both serene.

"I don't know," he said. "This was something that I was telling you. Now go ahead and tell me about your will."

"That's all of it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean just that. The property all goes to Mrs. Clinton Foley; every bit of it."

Perry Mason put the pen back in its receptacle, and the fingers of his right hand made little drumming noises on the top of the desk. A wary appraisal was evident in his glance.

"Well, then," he said, "let's hear about the dog."

"The dog howls," said Cartright.

Perry Mason's nod was sympathetic.

"He howls mostly at night," Cartright said, "but sometimes during the day. It's driving me crazy. I can't stand that continual howling. You know, a dog howls when there's a death due to occur in the neighborhood."

"Where is the dog?" asked Mason.

"In the house next door."

"You mean," asked Perry Mason, "that the house where Mrs. Clinton Foley lives is on one side of you, and the house that has the howling dog is on the other side?"

"No," said Cartright, "I mean that the howling dog is in Clinton Foley's house."

"I see," Mason remarked. "Suppose you tell me all about it, Cartright."

Cartright pinched out the end of the cigarette, got to his feet, walked rapidly to the window, stared out with unseeing eyes, then turned and paced back toward the lawyer.

"Look here," he said, "there's one more question about the will."

"Yes?" asked Mason.

"Suppose Mrs. Clinton Foley really shouldn't be Mrs. Clinton Foley?"

"How do you mean?" Mason inquired.

"Suppose that she's living with Clinton Foley, as his wife, but isn't married to him?"

"That wouldn't make any difference," Mason said slowly, "if you described her in the will as 'Mrs. Clinton Foley, the woman who is at present living with Clinton Foley at 4889 Milpas Drive, as his wife.' In other words, the testator has a right to leave property to whom he wishes. Words of description in a will are valuable only so far as they explain the intention of the testator.

"For instance, there have been many occasions when men have died, willing property to their wives, and it has turned out they were not legally married. There have been cases where men have left property to their sons, when it has turned out that the person was not really his son..."

"I don't care anything about all that stuff," said Arthur Cartright irritably. "I'm just asking you about this one particular case. It wouldn't make any difference?"

"It wouldn't make any difference," Mason said.

"Well, then," said Cartright, his eyes suddenly cunning. "Suppose that there should be a real Mrs. Clinton Foley. What I mean is, suppose Clinton Foley had been legally married and had never been legally divorced, and I should leave the property to Mrs. Clinton Foley?"

Perry Mason's tone of voice was that of one soothing groundless fears.

"I have explained to you," he said, "that the intention of the testator governs. If you leave your property to the woman who is now residing at that address, as the wife of Clinton Foley, it is all that is necessary. But do I understand that Clinton Foley is living?"

"Of course he's living. He's living next door to me."

"I see," Mason said cautiously, feeling his way, and making his voice sound casual. "And Mr. Clinton Foley knows that you intend to leave your property to his wife?"

"Certainly not," flared Cartright. "He doesn't know anything of the sort. He doesn't have to, does he?"

"No," Mason said, "I was just wondering, that's all."

"Well, he doesn't know it, and he's not going to know it," said Cartright.

"All right," Mason told him, "that's settled. How about the dog?"

"We've got to do something about that dog."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want Foley arrested."

"On what grounds?"

"On the grounds that he's driving me crazy. A man can't keep a dog like that. It's part of a deliberate plan of persecution. He knows how I feel about a howling dog. He's got that dog, and he's taught it to howl. The dog didn't used to howl, he's just started howling the last night or two. He's doing it to irritate me and to irritate his wife. His wife is sick in bed, and the dog howls. It means death in the neighborhood."

Cartright was speaking rapidly now, his eyes glittering feverishly, his hands gesticulating, aimlessly pawing at the air.

Mason pursed his lips.

"I think," he said slowly, "that I'm not going to be able to handle the matter for you, Cartright. I'm exceptionally busy right now. Just got out of court from a murder case, and..."

"I know, I know," said Cartright, "you think I'm crazy. You think it's just some little piece of business. I tell you it isn't. It's one of the biggest pieces of business you ever handled. I came to you because you have been trying that murder case. I've followed it. I've been in court listening to you. You're a real lawyer. You were one jump ahead of the district attorney in that case from the time it started. I know all about it."

Perry Mason smiled slowly.

"Thanks for your good opinion, Cartright," he said, "but you can understand my work is mostly trial work. I have specialized on trials. Drawing a will is not exactly in my line, and this matter of the howling dog seems to be something that can be adjusted without a lawyer..."

"No, it can't," Cartright said. "You don't know Foley. You don't know the type of a man you're dealing with. Probably you think there isn't going to be enough money in it to pay you for your time, but I'm going to pay you. I'm going to pay you well."

He reached in his pocket, pulled out a well-filled wallet, opened it and jerked out three bills with trembling hand. He started to hand the bills to the lawyer, but they slipped from his fingers when his hand was half way across the desk, and fluttered to the blotter.

"There's three hundred dollars," he said. "That's for retainer. There'll be more when you get finished - lots more. I haven't been to the bank and got my cash yet, but I'm going to get it. I've got it in a safety deposit box - lots of it."

Perry Mason didn't touch the money for a moment. The tips of his firm capable fingers were drumming noiselessly on the desk.

"Cartright," he said slowly, "if I act as your lawyer in this thing, I am going to do what I think is for your own good and for your best interests, do you understand that?"

"Of course I understand it, that's what I want you to do."

"No matter what it is," warned Mason, "if I think it's for your best interests I'm going to do it."

"That's all right," Cartright told him, "if you'll just agree to handle the thing for me."

Perry Mason picked up the three one hundred dollar bills, folded them, put them in his pocket.

"Very well," he said, "I'll handle it for you. Now you want Foley arrested, is that right?"

"Yes."

"All right," Mason said, "that isn't going to be particularly complicated. You simply swear to a complaint, and the magistrate issues a warrant of arrest. Now, why did you want to retain me in that connection? Did you want me to act as special prosecutor?"

"You don't know Clinton Foley," doggedly repeated Arthur Cartright. "He'll come back at me. He'll file a suit against me for malicious prosecution. Perhaps he's just trained the dog to howl so that he can get me to walk into a trap."

"What kind of a dog is it?" Mason asked.

"A big police dog."

Perry Mason lowered his eyes and watched the tips of this drumming fingers for a moment, then looked up at Cartright with a reassuring smile.

"Legally," he said, "it's always a good defense to a suit for malicious prosecution if a person consults an attorney in good faith and puts all of the facts before him and then acts on the advice of that attorney. Now I'm going to put you in a position where no one can ever recover in a suit for malicious prosecution. I'm going to take you to a deputy in the district attorney's office, one who has charge of such matters. I'm going to let you talk with that deputy and tell him the whole story, - about the dog I mean. You don't need to tell him anything about the will. If he decides that a warrant should be issued, that's all there is to it. But I must warn you to tell the whole story to the district attorney. That is, give him all of the facts. State them fairly and completely, and then you'll have a perfect defense to any suit Foley might file."

Cartright sighed his relief.

"Now," he said, "you're talking sense. That's just exactly the kind of advice I want to pay for. Where do we find this deputy district attorney?"

"I'll have to telephone for an appointment," said Mason. "If you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll go see if I can get him on the telephone. Sit right here and make yourself at home. You'll find cigarettes there in the case, and..."

"Never mind that," Cartright said, making a swift motion toward his pocket, "I've got my own cigarettes here. Go right ahead and get that appointment. Let's do it right now. Let's get it over with as soon as possible. I can't stand another night of that howling dog."

"All right," Mason said, pushed back his swivel chair and walked to the door which led to the outer office. As his powerful shoulders swung the door hack, Arthur Cartright was lighting a second cigarette with a hand that quivered so it was necessary for him to steady it with the other hand.

Mason walked into the outer office.

Della Street, his secretary, twenty-seven, swiftly capable, looked up at him and smiled with the intimacy which comes from thorough understanding.

"Cuckoo?" she said.

"I don't know," Perry Mason said; "I'm going to find out. Get me Pete Dorcas on the telephone. I'm going to put the whole deal up to him."

The girl nodded. Her fingers whirred the dial of a telephone into swift action. Perry Mason strode to a window and stood with his feet planted far apart, his broad shoulders blotting out the light, his eyes staring moodily down into the concrete canyon from which came the blaring sounds of automobile horns, the rumble of traffic. The afternoon light, striking his rugged features, gave the face a weather-beaten appearance.

"Here he is," said Della Street.

Perry Mason turned, took two rapid strides, scooped up a telephone from a desk in the corner of the room, as Della Street's capable fingers plugged the call in on that line.

"Hello, Pete," said Mason. "This is Perry Mason. I'm bringing a man down to see you, and I want to explain it to you in advance."

Pete Dorcas had a rasping, high-pitched voice, the voice of an office lawyer who has perfected himself in the mastery of technicalities, and is constantly explaining them to others who require argument in order to become convinced.

"Congratulations, Perry, on your victory. It was well thought out. I told the trial deputy there was a weak point in that case on the time element, and I warned him that if he went before a jury and couldn't explain that call about the stolen automobile, he'd lose his case."

"Thanks," said Mason laconically. "I get the breaks, that's all."

"Yes, you do," said Dorcas. "You make the breaks, that's why you get them. It suits me all right. I told these fellows they were skating on thin ice. Now how about this man that you're bringing down? What does he want?"

"He wants a complaint."

"On what?"

"On a howling dog."

"On a what?"

"That's right, a howling dog. I think there's a county ordinance against keeping a dog that howls in any congested area, whether it's incorporated as a city or not."

"There is some such ordinance; nobody pays any attention to it. That is, I've never had anything to do under it."

"All right," Mason said, "this is different. My client is either going crazy, or has gone crazy."

"On account of the howling dog?" asked Dorcas.

"I don't know; that's what I want to find out. If he's in need of treatment, I want him to have treatment. If he's worked up to the verge of a nervous collapse, I want to see that he gets a break. You understand that a howling dog might be just annoying to one person, and might drive a man of another temperament into insanity."

"I take it," Dorcas said, "you're going to bring him down here?"

"Yes, I'm going to bring him down there, and I want you to have a doctor present; one of the alienists who sits on insanity cases. Don't introduce him as a doctor, but introduce him as an assistant of some sort, and let him hear the conversation and perhaps ask a question or two. Then, if this man needs medical treatment, let's see that he gets it."

"Suppose he doesn't want it?"

"I said," Mason remarked, "that we should see that he gets it."

"You'd have to sign a complaint and have a commitment issued in order to do that," Dorcas pointed out.

"I know that," Mason said. "I'm willing to sign a complaint, myself, if the man needs medical treatment. I want to know, that's all. If he's crazy, I want to do what's best for him. If he isn't, I want to see that he gets action right away. I'm trying to represent his best interests, do you get me?"

"I got you," Dorcas remarked.

"Be there in fifteen minutes," said Mason, and hung up.

He was putting on his hat as he opened the door of the inner office, and nodded to Cartright.

"All right," he said, "he's waiting for us in the office. Have you got a car, or do we go in a taxicab?"

"We go in a taxicab," Cartright told him. "I'm too nervous to drive."

CHAPTER II

PETE DORCAS uncoiled his lean length from behind a battered desk, stared at Arthur Cartright with steely eyes, and acknowledged Perry Mason's introduction with the usual formula of pleasure. He half turned and indicated a short, paunchy individual, whose face held what seemed, at first glance, to be merely bubbling good nature. Only a second glance disclosed the wary watchfulness which lurked back of the twinkle in the gray eyes.

"Meet Mr. Cooper," he said, "my assistant."

The paunchy individual smiled his pleasure, came forward and shook hands with Cartright. The twinkling eyes studied Cartright's face in swift appraisal. The man held Cartright's hand for an appreciable interval after he had completed the perfunctory handshake.

"Well," said Mason, "I guess we're all ready to go; is that right?"

"All ready," said Dorcas, sitting down back of his desk.

He was tall, lean, high checked and bald-headed, and there was a mental alertness about him which made his audience restless.

"It's about a dog," said Perry Mason. "Clinton Foley, residing at 4889 Milpas Drive, his house adjoining that of Mr. Cartright here, has a police dog that howls."

"Well," said Dorcas, grinning, "if a dog is entitled to one bite, he should be entitled to one howl."

Arthur Cartright did not smile. His hand shot to his pocket, pulled out a package of cigarettes, then, after a moment's hesitation, dropped the package back in the pocket.

Cooper's twinkling eyes, watching Cartright in constant appraisal, lost their expression of bubbling good humor for a moment, then once more started to twinkle.

"This man has got to be arrested," said Cartright. "The howling has got to be stopped. You hear? It's got to be stopped!"

"Sure," said Perry Mason, "that's what we're here for, Cartright. Go ahead and tell them your story."

"There's no story to tell; the dog howls, that's all."

"Constantly?" asked Cooper.

"Constantly. That is, I don't mean constantly, I mean he howls regularly at intervals, you know the way a dog howls. Damn it! No dog howls all the time. He howls, and then he stops, and then he howls again."

"What makes him howl?" asked Cooper.

"Foley makes him howl," said Cartright positively.

"And why?" asked Cooper.

"Because he knows it gets my goat. Because he knows it gets his wife's goat. It means a death in the neighborhood, and his wife is sick. I tell you he's got to stop it! That dog has got to be stopped."

Dorcas thumbed through the index of a leather-backed book, then said in a querulous, high pitched voice:

"Well, there's an ordinance against it, an ordinance providing that if any one keeps any dog, cow, horse, chickens, rooster, guinea hen, fowl, animal or other livestock of any sort, nature or description within a congested area whether the same be incorporated or unincorporated, under such circumstances that a nuisance is created, it is a misdemeanor."

"What more do you want?" asked Cartright.

Dorcas laughed.

"I don't want any more of anything," he said. "Personally I don't like howling dogs and I don't like crowing roosters. This ordinance was originally enacted to keep dairies and livery stables out of the congested districts. Milpas Drive is an exclusive residential district. There's some rather expensive homes out there. What's your address, Mr. Cartright?"

"4893."

"And Foley's place is 4889?"

"That's right."

"Yet the two houses adjoin?"

"That's right."

"You've got rather a large lot?"

"He has."

"How about you?"

"Mine's just about average."

"Foley's wealthy?" asked Dorcas.

"Does that make any difference?" asked Cartright irritably. "Of course, he's wealthy, or he wouldn't be living out there."

"It doesn't make a difference in one sense of the word," said Dorcas slowly, "but you understand we have to use our judgment here in the office. I don't like to send out and arrest a reputable citizen, without first giving him warning. Suppose I give him a warning?"

"It won't do any good," said Cartright.

Perry Mason spoke slowly, with almost judicial dignity.

"My client," he said, "wants to be fair. You can use your judgment as to methods, Dorcas, but I am going to insist that the nuisance be abated, that the howling of the dog cease. You can see for yourself that my client is in a nervous condition. It's been brought about by the howling of the dog."

"I'm not nervous," snapped Cartright, "just a little upset, that's all."

Perry Mason nodded without saying anything. Cooper's eyes flickered to those of Mason, and his head gave an almost perceptible nod. Then the eyes swung back to Cartright.

"I think," said Dorcas slowly, "that the policy of the office would be not to prosecute until after we had given a warning. We'd write a letter to Mr. Foley, telling him that complaint had been made, and calling his attention to the county ordinance which makes the maintenance of such a dog a nuisance. We could tell him that if the dog is ill, or something, he should be confined in a hospital or kennel until after the attack has ceased."

Perry Mason glanced at Cartright, who started to say something, but was interrupted by Dorcas.

"The dog has been there for some time, Mr. Cartright?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"I don't know - two months that I know of. I've only been there two months, myself. The dog has been there that long."

"And he hasn't howled before?"

"No."

"When did it start?"

"Night before last."

"I take it," said Dorcas, "that you're not on good terms with Foley. That is, you wouldn't run across and tell him to please make the animal stop howling?"

"No, I wouldn't do that."

"How about telephoning him?"

"No."

"Well, suppose I write him a letter?"

"You don't know Foley," said Cartright bitterly. "He'd tear the letter up and make the dog howl all the worse. He'd laugh with fiendish glee to think that he'd got my goat. He'd take the letter and show it to his wife, and..."

Cartright ceased speaking abruptly.

"Don't stop," said Dorcas. "Go on. What else would he do?"

"Nothing," said Cartright in a surly tone of voice.

"I think," said Mason, "that we will be content if you write the letter, Mr. Dorcas, with the understanding that if the dog doesn't quit howling, a warrant will be issued."

"Of course, there'll be that understanding," said the deputy district attorney.

"Now, a letter sent in the ordinary course of mail wouldn't be delivered until some time tomorrow, even if you got it out this afternoon," Mason said. "I am suggesting that you make a formal notification and send it out by one of the officers. Let the officer make a service upon Mr. Foley, personally, or upon any one else who may be in charge of the house, in the event Foley is not at home. This will have the effect of showing Foley that it is not merely a complaint instigated by Cartright, and having no legal status."

Cartright shook his head doggedly.

"I want him arrested," he said.

Perry Mason's tone was patient.

"You put the matter in my hands, Mr. Cartright," he said, "and you will remember what I told you. You, yourself, have stated that Foley is vindictive; that he is wealthy, and that he may start some action against you. If that happens, it is incumbent on you to show that you have acted throughout in the utmost good faith. I think that this step suggested by Mr. Dorcas, with the modifications in procedure which I have pointed out, will place you in the clear, legally. It is my advice that you follow that procedure."

Cartright whirled on Perry Mason with a display of temper.

"What if I don't choose to follow that advice?" he asked.

"Under those circumstances," said Perry Mason patiently, "you would, of course, prefer to get some other attorney - some one in whose advice you would have confidence."

Cartright paused for a moment, then suddenly nodded.

"Very well," he said, "I will be willing to follow that procedure. I want you to send the notification out right away, however."

"Just as soon as it can be prepared," said Perry Mason soothingly.

"Well, then," Cartright said, "I'm going to leave that up to you. I'm going back home. You represent my interests, Mr. Mason. You stay here and assist in getting out the proper notification, and seeing that it is delivered. Will you do that?"

"I will do that," said Perry Mason, "You can go home and get some rest, Cartright. Leave the matter in my hands."

Cartright nodded and paused with his hand on the door.

"Thank you, gentlemen," he said. "I am glad I met you. Pardon me if I seem a little upset. I haven't been sleeping much."

Then the door slammed.

"Well," said Pete Dorcas, turning to Dr. Cooper.

Dr. Cooper placed the tips of his fingers together over his paunchy stomach.

"Well," he said, the twinkle abruptly fading from his eyes, "I wouldn't want to make a diagnosis on the limited evidence available at the present time, but I should say it was a case of manic depressive psychosis."

Perry Mason grinned.

"Sounds formidable, Doctor," he said, "but doesn't that mean merely a nervous breakdown?"

"There is no such thing," said Dr. Cooper, "as a nervous breakdown. It is a popular expression, applied to various forms of functional or degenerative psychoses."

"Well," said Mason, "let's get at it another way. A man who is suffering from a manic depressive psychosis isn't insane, is he?"

"He isn't normal."

"I know, but he isn't insane."

"Well, it's a question of what you mean by insane. It isn't, of course, the degree of legal insanity which would excuse one from committing a crime, if that's what you mean.

"That isn't what I mean," said Mason. "Come on down to earth, Doctor; let's quit splitting hairs. You're not on the witness stand; you're just telling us. It's purely a functional disease, isn't it?"

"That's right."

"And curable?"

"Oh, yes, completely curable."

"All right," said Mason irritably, "let's get rid of that howling dog then."

"Of course," said Pete Dorcas, twisting a pencil in his fingers, "we haven't any one's word for the fact that the dog is howling, other than this man Cartright's unsupported statement."

"Oh, forget it," Mason told him. "You're not getting out a warrant. Go ahead and make a notification to Clinton Foley, stating that complaint has been made that he's violating ordinance number so and so, and give him a general idea of what the ordinance contains. He'll shut up the howling dog if he's got one, and if he hasn't he'll telephone in and let you know."

Mason turned to Dr. Cooper.

"That idea of the howling dog isn't apt to be a delusion, is it, Doctor?"

"They have delusions in manic depressive psychosis," said Dr. Cooper, "but usually they are delusions of persecution."

"Well," Dorcas remarked, "he thinks he's being persecuted. He thinks the dog is being put up to it by Foley."

Perry Mason looked at his watch.

"Let's get in a stenographer," he said, "and we can dictate a notice that will cover the case, and get it dispatched."

Dorcas turned to Dr. Cooper and raised his eyebrows.

Dr. Cooper nodded.

Dorcas pushed a button with his forefinger.

"Very well," he said, "I'll dictate it and sign it."

"I want to talk with the deputy who's going to take it out," said Mason. "I can perhaps expedite matters a little by seeing that he has ample transportation provided, and..."

Dorcas grinned.

"You mean giving him a few cigars," he said.

"Perhaps," Perry Mason said, "I might give him a bottle, but I wouldn't want to commit myself in front of a deputy district attorney."

"Go on down to the sheriff's office," said Dorcas, "and get a deputy assigned to deliver the notice. I'll have it ready by the time you get back. You can go out with the deputy if you want to."

"Not me," Mason said, grinning. "I know the proper place for a lawyer and the proper place for a deputy sheriff. One's in the office and the other's on the ground, delivering notices. I'll be in my office when the notice is delivered."

He opened the door of the office and turned to Dr. Cooper. "Don't think I'm argumentative, Doctor. I appreciate the position you're in, but I hope you appreciate the position I'm in. This man came into the office, and I could see that he was in a nervous condition. I didn't know whether he was insane or not. I wanted to find out."

"Of course," Dr. Cooper said, "I can't make a complete diagnosis..."

"I understand that," Mason told him.

"Did he say anything else?" asked Dorcas. "Did he want to consult you about anything other than the howling dog?"

Perry Mason smiled, a slow, patient smile.

"Now," he said, "you are asking questions. I can tell you, however, that the man paid me a retainer, if that will be of any help?"

"In cash?" asked Dorcas.

"In cash."

"That settles it," said Dr. Cooper, laughing, "a certain sign of insanity - a departure from the normal."

"I'll say it's a departure from the normal," Perry Mason remarked, and closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER III

DELLA STREET had Perry Mason's morning mail opened when he pushed open the door of the outer office with a cheery "Good morning. What's new, Della?"

"A lot of the usual stuff," she said, "and one that isn't usual."

"We'll save the cake until last," he told her, grinning. "What's the usual stuff?"

"One of the jurors on that last case," she said, "wants to talk over a corporation matter with you. A couple more rang up to congratulate you on the way you handled the case. There's a man who's been trying to get an appointment and won't tell me the details of what it's about. It's got something to do with some mining stock be bought. There are letters asking about minor matters..."

He made a wry face and a sweeping gesture of dismissal with his hand, then grinned at her.

"Kick 'em all out, Della," he said. "I don't like routine. I want excitement. I want to work on matters of life and death, where minutes count. I want the bizarre and the unusual."

She looked at him with eyes that held a tender solicitude. "You take too many chances, Chief," she protested. "Your love of excitement is going to get you into trouble some day. Why don't you simply handle trial work instead of going out and mixing into the cases the way you do?"

His grin was boyish.

"In the first place," he said, "I like the excitement. In the second place, because I win my cases by knowing the facts. I beat the prosecution to the punch. It's lots of fun... What's the unusual thing, Della?"

"That's plenty unusual, Chief," she said. "It's a letter from this man who was in here yesterday."

"What man?"

"The man who wanted to see you about the howling dog."

"Oh," said Mason, grinning, "Cartright, eh? Wonder if he slept last night."

"This letter," she reported, "came special delivery. It must have been mailed some time during the night."

"Something more about the dog?" he asked.

"He enclosed a will," she said, lowering her voice and looking furtively about the outer office as though afraid that some one might overhear her, "and ten one thousand dollar bills."

Perry Mason stood staring down at her with his forehead washboarded, his eyes squinted.

"You mean ten thousand dollars in currency?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Sent through the mail?"

"Through the mail."

"Registered?"

"No, just special delivery."

"I," said Perry Mason, "will be damned."

She got up from behind the desk, walked over to the safe, opened the safe, unlocked the inner compartment, and took out the envelope and handed it to him.

"And you say there's a will?"

"A will."

"A letter with it?"

"Yes, a short letter."

Perry Mason fished out the ten one thousand dollar bills, looked them over carefully, whistled under his breath, folded them and put them in his pocket. Then he read the letter aloud.

DEAR MR. MASON:

I saw you during that last murder trial. I'm convinced you're honest and I'm convinced you're a fighter. I want you to fight on this case. I'm enclosing ten thousand dollars and I'm enclosing a will. The ten thousand dollars is a retainer. You get your fee under the will. I want you to represent the beneficiary named in that will and fight for her interests all the way through. I know now why the dog howled.

I'm drawing up this will, the way you told me a will like this could be made. Perhaps you won't have any occasion to probate the will or fight for the beneficiary. If you don't, you've got the ten thousand dollars, plus the retainer I gave you yesterday.

Thanks for the interest you've taken in my case.

Sincerely yours,

ARTHUR CARTRIGHT.

Perry Mason shook his head dubiously and took the folded bills from his pocket.

"I'd sure like to keep that money," he said.

"Keep it!" exclaimed Della Street. "Why, of course you'll keep it. The letter shows what it's for. It's a legitimate retainer, isn't it?"

Perry Mason sighed and dropped the money onto her desk.

"Crazy," he said. "The man's crazy as a loon."

"What makes you think he's crazy?" she asked.

"Everything," he told her.

"You didn't think so last night."

"I thought he was nervous and perhaps sick."

"But you didn't think he was crazy."

"Well, not exactly."

"You mean the reason you think he's crazy, then, is because he sent you this letter."

Perry Mason grinned at her.

"Well," he said, "Dr. Charles Cooper, the alienist who handles the commitments on the insanity board, remarked that the payment of a cash retainer was certainly a departure from the normal these days. This man has paid two of them within twenty-four hours, and he sent ten thousand dollars through the mail in an unregistered letter."

"Perhaps he didn't have any other way to send it," suggested Della Street.

"Perhaps," he told her. "Did you read the will?"

"No, I didn't. The letter came in, and when I saw what it was, I put it in the safe right away."

"Well," Mason told her, "let's take a look at the will."

He unfolded the sheet of paper which was marked on the outside: LAST WILL OF ARTHUR CARTRIGHT.

His eye ran along the writing, and he slowly nodded.

"Well," he said, "he's made a good holographic will. It's all in his handwriting - signature, date and everything."

"Does he leave you something in the will?" asked Della Street curiously.

Perry Mason looked up from the paper and chuckled.

"My, but you're getting mercenary this morning," he said.

"If you could see the way bills keep coming in, you'd be mercenary too. Honestly, I don't see how there can be any depression, the way you spend money."

"I'm just keeping it in circulation," he told her. "There's just as much money in the country as there ever was - more in fact, but it doesn't circulate as rapidly. Therefore, nobody seems to have any."

"Well," she told him, "yours circulates fast enough. But tell me about the will, or is it any of my business?"

"Oh, it's your business, all right," he told her. "One of these days I may get bumped off, the way I work up my cases, and you'll be the only one that knows anything about my business affairs. Let's see. He leaves his property to the beneficiary, and then he leaves me a one-tenth interest in his estate, to be paid to me when the estate is finally distributed, upon condition that I have faithfully represented the woman who is the principal beneficiary, in every form of legal matter which may arise, incident to the will, growing out of his death, or in anywise connected with her domestic relationships."

"Takes in a lot of territory, doesn't he?" said Della Street.

Perry Mason nodded his head slowly, and when he spoke, his voice was meditative.

"That man," he said, "either wrote that will at the dictation of a lawyer, or else he's got a pretty good business mind. It isn't the kind of a will a crazy man would write. It's logical and coherent. He leaves his property, nine-tenths to Mrs. Clinton Foley, and one-tenth to me. He provides..."

Suddenly Perry Mason broke off and stared at the document with eyes that slowly widened in surprise.

"What is it?" asked Della Street. "Anything serious; a defect in the will?"

"No," said Mason slowly, "it's not a defect in the will, but it's something peculiar."

Abruptly he strode across the office to the door which opened into the outer corridor, and locked it.

"We're not going to bother with visitors for a while, Della," he told her, "not until we get this straightened out."

"But what is it?" she asked.

Perry Mason lowered his voice.

"Yesterday," he said, "when the man was in, he asked me particularly about leaving the property to Mrs. Clinton Foley, and wanted to know what the effect of the will would be if it should turn out that the woman who posed as Mrs. Foley, wasn't really Mrs. Foley."

"Meaning that she wasn't married to Clinton Foley?" asked Della Street.

"Exactly," said Mason.

"But isn't she living with Mr. Foley out there in an exclusive neighborhood?"

"Exactly," Mason said, "but that doesn't prove anything. There have been cases where..."

"Oh, yes, I know," said Della Street. "But it does seem strange that a man would live in a neighborhood like that with a woman who posed as his wife."

"There might be reasons for it. Those things happen every day. Perhaps a former wife who won't get a divorce, herself, and won't let the man get one. Perhaps the woman has a husband. There might be any one of a dozen things."

She nodded slow affirmation. "You've got me curious now. What about the will?"

"Well," said Mason, "when he was in yesterday he brought up this question about leaving the property to Mrs. Clinton Foley if it should turn out that the woman wasn't Mrs. Clinton Foley at all, but was merely posing as Mrs. Foley. From the way he spoke, I felt quite certain that he had reason to believe the woman was not Mrs. Foley, so I explained to him that it would be all right for him to leave the property to the party named, describing her as being the woman who at present resided with Clinton Foley, at 4889 Milpas Drive."

"Well," asked Della Street, "did he do it?"

"He did not," said Perry Mason. "He left his property to Mrs. Clinton Foley, the lawfully wedded wife of Clinton Foley, said Clinton Foley at present residing at 4889 Milpas Drive in this city."

"Then that makes it different?" asked Della Street.

"Of course it makes it different," he said. "It makes it different all the way through. If it should turn out that the woman who is living with him at that address isn't his wife, she wouldn't take under the will. The will distributes the property to the lawfully wedded wife of Clinton Foley, and the description of the residence relates to Clinton Foley rather than his wife."

"Do you suppose he misunderstood you?" asked Della Street.

"I don't know," frowned the lawyer. "He didn't seem to misunderstand me on anything else, and he's been clear enough in everything he's done. Look up Cartright in the telephone book. He lives at 4893 Milpas Drive. He'll have a telephone. Get him on the telephone at once. Tell him it's important."

She nodded and reached for the telephone, but an incoming call tripped the buzzer on the switchboard before her fingers closed about the receiver.

"See who it is," said Mason.

She plugged in the line, said: "Office of Perry Mason," then listened for a moment, and nodded.

"Just a minute," she said, and cupped her palm over the mouthpiece.

"It's Pete Dorcas," she said, "the deputy district attorney. He says he wants to talk to you right away about that Cartright case."

"All right," said Mason, "put him on."

"In your office?" she asked.

"No, this telephone's all right," he told her, "and listen in on the conversation. I don't know just what it's going to be, but I want a witness."

He scooped up the receiver, said "Hello," and heard the voice of Pete Dorcas, edged with impatience, querulous and rasping.

"I'm afraid, Mason," he said, "that I've got to issue a commitment for your client, Arthur Cartright, on the ground of insanity."

"What's he done now?" asked Mason.

"Apparently this howling dog business is all a part of his imagination," Dorcas said. "Clinton Foley has told me enough to make me believe that the man is not only dangerously insane, but that he has a homicidal complex which may cause him to take the law in his own hands and become violent."

"When did Foley tell you all this?" Mason asked, looking at his wristwatch.

"Just a few minutes ago."

"He was there at the office?" asked Mason.

"He's here right now."

"All right," Mason said, "hold him there. I've got a right to be heard on this. I'm Cartright's lawyer, and I'm going to see that my client gets a square deal. You hold him there. I'm coming right over."

He didn't wait to give Dorcas a chance to make any excuses, but slammed the receiver back on the telephone, turned and said to Della Street: "All right, Della, break that connection. Get Cartright on the line. Tell him that I want to see him at once. Tell him to get out of his house and go to some hotel; register under his own name, but don't let any one know where he's going; telephone you the name of the hotel where he's at, and you can telephone me. Tell him to keep away from my office and keep away from his residence until I see him. Tell him it's important. I'm going over to the district attorney's office and see what's happening. This Clinton Foley is making trouble."

He slipped back the spring lock on the outer door, shot out into the corridor and was half way to the elevator by the time the door check swung the door shut, and the spring latch snapped into position.

He flagged a cab in front of his office and snapped at the driver: "District attorney's office. Make it snappy and I pay the fines."

He jumped into the cab, the door slammed, and Perry Mason lurched back against the cushions as the cab lunged into motion. During the drive, he sat with his eyes staring, unseeingly, straight ahead, his forehead puckered with thought. His body swayed mechanically as the cab swung around corners or lurched from side to side in avoiding obstacles.

When the cab swung into the curb and the driver pulled the slip from the meter, Perry Mason tossed him a five dollar bill and said: "That's all right, buddy." He crossed the sidewalk, went to the ninth floor, said to the girl at the information desk in the district attorney's office: "Pete Dorcas is waiting for me."

He walked past her, down a long corridor lined with doors, paused before one that had gilt letters on the frosted glass, reading simply: "Mr. Dorcas," and tapped on the door.

The querulous voice of Pete Dorcas called: "Come in."

Perry Mason turned the knob and walked into the room.

Pete Dorcas was sitting behind the desk, an expression of annoyance on his face. On the other side of the desk, a huge figure struggled from a chair and turned to face Perry Mason inquiringly.

The man was over six feet in height, broad of shoulder, deep of chest, long of arm. His waist had put on a little flesh, but not enough to detract from the athletic figure. He was, perhaps, forty years old, and when he spoke, his voice was resonant.

"I presume you're Perry Mason," he said, "Mr. Cartright's lawyer?"

Perry Mason nodded curtly, stood with his feet spread apart, his head thrust slightly forward, his eyes staring at the man in cold appraisal.

"Yes," he said, "I'm Cartright's lawyer."

"I'm Mr. Clinton Foley, his neighbor," said the man, extending a hand and smiling graciously.

Perry Mason took two steps forward, took the hand, and turned to Dorcas after a perfunctory handshake.

"Sorry if I kept you waiting, Pete, but this is important. I can explain it to you a little later. I've got to find out what it's all about."

"There's nothing that it's all about," said Dorcas, "except that I'm busy, and you took up a lot of my time yesterday afternoon about a howling dog who didn't howl, and now it turns out your man's crazy as a loon."

"What makes you think he's crazy?" asked Mason.

"What made you think he was crazy?" said Dorcas irritably. "You thought so yesterday. You telephoned and said you thought he was crazy and wanted me to have a doctor here to look him over."

"No," Mason said slowly, "don't get me wrong on that, Dorcas. I knew the man was in a very bad state of nerves. I wanted to find out whether that was all there was to it, that's all."

"Yes, you did," Dorcas said, with heavy sarcasm. "You thought he was crazy, and you wanted to find out before you got your neck in a noose."

"What do you mean, get my neck in a noose?" demanded Mason.

"You know what I mean," Dorcas told him. "You came in here with a man who wanted to get out a warrant for the arrest of a wealthy and prominent citizen. Naturally, you wanted to be certain that there wasn't going to be any come-back. That's what you were retained for. That's the reason you didn't get a warrant, but did get a notification asking Mr. Foley to come in. Well, he's here now, and what he tells me is plenty."

Perry Mason stared fixedly at Pete Dorcas until the steely eyes of the deputy district attorney lowered under Mason's direct gaze.

"When I came in here," Mason said slowly, "I came in here because I wanted to give you a fair deal, and because I wanted to get one. I told you my man was nervous. He told me he was nervous. He said the continued howling of the dog made him nervous. There's an ordinance on the books against maintaining a nuisance with a noisy animal. My client is entitled to the protection of that law, even if it does happen that a man who's got some political pull..."

"But the dog didn't howl," Dorcas exclaimed irritably. "That's just the point."

Foley's voice interposed on the discussion.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," he said, "may I say a word?"

Perry Mason didn't even turn to him, but continued to stare steadily at the deputy district attorney. Dorcas, however, looked up, his face showing relief.

"Certainly," he said, "go right ahead."

"You'll pardon me, I'm certain, Mr. Mason," said Foley, "if I speak frankly. I know that you want to get at the facts. I understand your position in this matter and want to commend you upon the fair way you have gone about protecting the interests of your client."

Perry Mason turned slowly toward him, sized him up with uncordial eyes that swept up and down the big frame of the man.

"Forget it," he said, "go ahead and explain."

"This man, Cartright," said Foley, "is undoubtedly mentally deranged. He has rented the adjoining house. I feel quite certain that the owners of the house do not know the sort of tenant with whom they are dealing. Cartright has one servant, a deaf housekeeper. He has no friends, apparently; no acquaintances. He stays around his house virtually all of the time."

"Well," said Perry Mason belligerently, "that's his privilege, isn't it? Maybe he doesn't like the neighborhood."

Dorcas got to his feet.

"Now listen, Mason," he said, "you can't..."

"Gentlemen, please," said Foley. "Let me explain. Let me handle this. Please, Mr. Dorcas. I understand Mr. Mason's attitude. He thinks that I have brought political influence to bear, and that the interests of his client are being jeopardized."

"Well," said Mason, "haven't you?"

"No," said Foley, smiling amiably. "I have merely explained the facts to Mr. Dorcas. Your client, as I have said, is a very peculiar man. He lives virtually the life of a hermit, yet he continually spies on me out of the windows of his house, he has a pair of binoculars, and he watches every move I make."

Dorcas hesitated for a moment, then dropped back into his swivel chair, shrugged his shoulders, and lit a cigarette.

"Go on," said Perry Mason, "I'm listening."

"My Chinese cook," said Foley, "was the one who first called it to my attention. He noticed the lenses of the binoculars. Understand me, please, Mr. Mason. I consider only that your client is mentally deranged and doesn't know what he is doing. Also, please understand that I have ample witnesses to substantiate everything I am going to say."

"All right," said Mason, "what are you going to say?"

"I am going," Foley said, with dignity, "to complain about the constant espionage. It makes it difficult for me to keep my servants. It is annoying to me and to my guests. The man snoops around and stares at me through binoculars. He never has the lights on the upper floor of his house turned on. He constantly parades through the dark rooms at night, with his binoculars in his hand, snooping and spying on everything that I do. He is a dangerous neighbor."

"Well," Mason said, "it's no crime for a man to look through binoculars, is it?"

"That isn't the point," Dorcas said, "and you know it, Mason. The man is insane."

"What makes you think he's insane?" Mason demanded.

"Because," said Dorcas, "he has reported a howling dog, and the dog didn't howl."

"You've got a dog, haven't you?" Mason asked Foley.

"Certainly," said Foley, still keeping his conciliatory manner.

"And you mean to say he doesn't howl?"

"Never."

"Didn't howl a couple of nights ago?"

"No."

"I've talked it over with Dr. Cooper," said Dorcas, "and he tells me that if there is a delusion of persecution, coupled with the hallucination of a howling dog, and the fear that there is going to be a death in the neighborhood, present in your client's mind, he may develop homicidal mania at almost any moment, and without warning."

"All right," Mason said; "your mind's made up. So's mine. You're going to commit him, are you?"

"I propose to see that his sanity is inquired into," said Dorcas, with dignity.

"Go ahead," Mason told him. "The same thing that you told me yesterday, I'm telling you today. If you're going to have a man's sanity inquired into, some one has got to sign a complaint. Now who's going to sign the complaint? Are you?"

"I might," Dorcas said.

"Better take it easy," Mason said; "I'm just warning you, that's all."

"Warning me of what?"

"Warning you that if you sign a complaint alleging that my client is insane, you'd better make a much more complete investigation than you've made to date. Otherwise there's going to be some trouble."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," said Foley. "Please let's not have any friction about this. After all, it's merely a matter of doing the right thing by poor Mr. Cartright. I have no feelings against him whatever. He is a neighbor and he has made himself obnoxious, but I feel certain that his conduct is caused by a mental derangement. I desire to have that inquired into, that is all. In the event it appears the man's mind is not deranged, then I shall take steps, naturally, to see that he does not repeat his assertions about my dog and my household."

Dorcas spoke to Perry Mason.

"This isn't getting you anywhere, Perry," he said. "Foley's absolutely within his rights. You know that you brought Cartright here because you wanted to forestall any action for malicious prosecution. If Cartright made a full and complete disclosure of the facts to us, and was authorized to proceed, he acted within his rights. If he distorted or misstated the facts, he did not."

Mason laughed grimly.

"Trying to lay the foundation for a lawsuit, are you?" he asked Foley.

"I am not," Foley said.

"Well, I'm just telling you both something that you've forgotten," Mason remarked, "and that is that no warrant was issued and no complaint was filed. The deputy district attorney decided to write you a letter. That's about the size of it, isn't it, Dorcas?"

"Legally, yes," said Dorcas slowly. "But if it appears the man is insane, something should be done about it."

"All right," Mason said, "all of your ideas about the man's insanity are founded on the statement Foley has made, that the dog didn't howl, isn't that right?"

"Naturally, but Mr. Foley says he has witnesses to substantiate his statement."

"So he says," Mason went on doggedly, "and until you interview those witnesses, you don't know which one of them is crazy. Maybe it's Foley that's crazy."

Foley laughed, but the laugh was mechanical, and his eyes glinted.

"Well, then," Dorcas said, "as I understand it, you want us to investigate further before we do anything, is that right?"

"Naturally," said Mason. "You didn't go any farther on the word of my client, than to write a letter. If you want to write Mr. Cartright a letter, telling him that Mr. Foley says he's crazy, that's all right with me. But if you go ahead on the unsupported word of Mr. Foley, I'm going to stick up for the rights of my client."

Dorcas reached for his desk phone, took down the receiver, and said:

"Sheriff's office."

After a moment, he said: "Let me talk with Bill Pemberton... hello... Bill?... this is Pete Dorcas. Listen, we've got a dispute down here in the office, involving a couple of millionaires out on Milpas Drive. There's a question of a howling dog. One of them says the dog howls; the other one says he doesn't. One of them says the other man's crazy. Perry Mason is retained to represent one of them and demands an investigation. Can you go out there and settle the thing?"

There was a moment of silence, then Dorcas said: "All right, come down to the office right away."

He hung up the telephone and turned to look at Perry Mason with cold eyes.

"Now, then, Perry," he said, "you've started this thing. We're going to make an investigation. If it turns out your man is making false statements, and is mentally deranged we're going to go right through with a commitment, unless you want to find some relative and have the man committed privately."

"Now," said Mason, "you're commencing to talk sense. Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?"

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me that I could find a relative and get the man committed?"

"Well," said Dorcas, "he started the machinery of this office on a criminal matter which seems to have been entirely without foundation. Then Mr. Foley came in and impressed upon us the fact that his safety was being jeopardized..."

"Exactly," said Perry Mason, "that's what I was combating.

"There's no hard feelings, Pete, but I'm representing my client, and when I represent a client, I fight for him - to the last ditch if necessary."

Dorcas sighed and made a gesture with his hands, spreading them out, palm upward on the desk.

"That's one thing about you, Mason," he said, "nobody can ever say you don't represent a client. You're hard to get along with."

"Not when my clients get a square deal," Mason said.

"Your client will get a square deal here," Dorcas told him, "as long as I'm running things. Bill Pemberton is fair, and he's going out and make an investigation."

"I want to go with him," Mason stated.

"Can you go, Mr. Foley?" Dorcas asked.

"When?" asked Mr. Foley.

"Right away," said Mason. "The sooner, the better."

"Yes," said Foley slowly, "I can go."

A figure silhouetted against the frosted glass of the outer door, then the door pushed open, and a raw-boned man, of forty-five years of age, grinned good-naturedly as he walked into the office.

"Hello, everybody," he said.

"Hello, Pemberton," Mason replied.

"Bill," said Dorcas, "shake hands with Mr. Foley. Mr. Foley is one of the parties to the controversy."

The deputy sheriff and Foley shook hands, and then Pemberton extended his hand to Mason.

"Great fight you made on that murder case, Mason," he said. "A nice piece of detective work. I want to compliment you on it."

"Thanks," Mason told him, shaking hands.

"What's this about?" Pemberton inquired of Dorcas.

"A howling dog," said the deputy district attorney, wearily.

"Making a lot of fuss over a howling dog, ain't you?" Pemberton asked. "Why not give him a piece of beefsteak and shut him up?"

"He's shut up already," Foley laughed. "That's the trouble."

"Foley will tell you the story on the way out," Dorcas said. "Foley represents one side of the controversy, and Perry represents the folks on the other side. It started out with a complaint over a howling dog, and now it's gone into a question of espionage, homicidal mania, and whatnot. Go on out and find out what it's all about. Talk with witnesses and then make a report to me. I'll take action, depending on what's disclosed by your report."

"Who are the witnesses?" Pemberton asked.

Foley held up his fingers and checked them off.

"To begin with," he said, "there's Cartright, who claims the dog howls, and Cartright's housekeeper. She may claim that she heard the dog howl, but if you'll talk with her, you'll find she's deaf as a post, and couldn't hear it thunder. Then there's my wife, who's been quite ill with influenza, but is getting better now. She's in bed, but she can talk with you. She knows the dog didn't howl. There's Ah Wong, my Chinese manservant, and Thelma Benton, my housekeeper. They can all tell you that the dog didn't howl. Then there's the dog himself."

"The dog going to tell me he didn't howl?" asked Pemberton, grinning.

"The dog can show you that he's quite contented, and that there isn't a howl in his system," smiled Foley, reaching in his pocket and taking out a leather cigar case. "How about a cigar?"

"Thanks," said Pemberton, taking a cigar.

"You?" asked Foley, extending the case to Mason.

"Thanks," said Mason, "I'll stick with my cigarettes."

"I've given this case a lot of time," said Dorcas, suggestively, "and..."

"Okay, Pete," Bill Pemberton boomed good-naturedly, "we're on our way right now. Come on, fellows."

CHAPTER IV

AS the sheriff's car swung into the curb, Bill Pemberton said: "Is that the house?"

"That's it," Foley answered, "but don't park here. Go on in the driveway. I'm putting an addition onto my garage, and the contractors have got things littered up here. They're finishing up this afternoon, and then I won't be troubled with them. It's been a nuisance."

"Whom do we talk with first?" asked Pemberton.

"You can suit yourself," Foley said with dignity, "but I think that after you have talked with my wife, you won't need to bother with any more witnesses."

"No," Pemberton said, "we're going to see them all. How about the Chinese cook? Is he home?"

"Certainly," Foley answered. "Keep right on the driveway if you want to, and we'll have him come out to his room. You'll probably want to see where he sleeps. It's over the garage."

"You're building an addition on that?"

"On the garage, not on the room," Foley said. "It's only the one story. The cook has his apartments on top of the garage."

"How about a chauffeur?" asked Pemberton.

"I presume the place was originally intended as a chauffeur's apartment," Foley admitted, "but I don't keep a chauffeur. What driving I do, I do personally."

"Well, then," Pemberton said, "let's talk with the Chink. That suit you, Mason?"

"Anything suits me," said Mason. "Only I want to have you talk with my client before you go."

"Oh, sure. That his place over there, Foley?"

"That's it; the one on the north."

The car slid along the driveway and came to a stop in front of the building where men were laboring with a sudden zeal which indicated a desire to impress the owner of the property, and, perhaps, forestall any complaint as to the manner in which the work had dragged along.

"Just go up here," said Foley, "and I'll get Ah Wong."

Pemberton started up a flight of stairs which hugged the concrete side of the building, then paused as there was the sound of a door banging and a woman's voice said: "Oh, Mr. Foley, I must see you at once. We've had trouble..."

The words became inaudible as the woman lowered her voice, on seeing the officer's car.

Bill Pemberton hesitated, then turned and walked to ward the back of the residence.

"Something about the dog, Foley?" he asked.

"I don't know," Clinton Foley said.

A young woman, attired in a housedress and apron, with her right hand and arm bandaged, walked rapidly toward Foley.

She was, perhaps, twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Her hair was slicked back on her head. Her face was without make-up, and she gave the impression of homely efficiency, yet it would have needed but a few deft touches of make-up, a change of clothes, and a fingerwave, to have made her quite beautiful.

Bill Pemberton looked at her with narrowing eyes.

"My housekeeper," Foley explained.

"Oh," said Pemberton significantly.

Foley whirled, started to say something, then paused and waited until the woman came to him.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Prince bit me," she said. "He was sick."

"How did it happen?"

"I don't know, but I think he'd been poisoned. He was acting queerly. I remembered what you'd said about putting salt on the back of his tongue if he ever gave any sign of sudden illness, so I took a handful of salt and put it on the back of his tongue. He closed his teeth and bit me."

Foley looked at the bandaged hand.

"Bad?" he asked.

"No," she said, "I don't think so."

"Where is he now?"

"I shut him in your bedroom after the salt had done its work. But I thought you should know - about the poison I mean."

"Is he better now?"

"He seems to be all cured."

"Was he having spasms?"

"No, he was lying and shivering. I spoke to him two or three times, and he didn't seem to take any interest. He seemed in sort of a stupor."

Foley nodded, turned to Pemberton.

"Mrs. Benton," he said, "this is Mr. Pemberton, a deputy sheriff, and this is Mr. Perry Mason, a lawyer. These gentlemen are investigating a charge that has been made by neighbors."

"A charge by neighbors?" asked Mrs. Benton, stepping back, and letting her eyes grow wide with surprise.

"Yes, a charge that we're maintaining a nuisance here."

"How's that?" she inquired.

"About the dog," Foley said. "There's a claim made that..."

"Just a moment," said Pemberton. "Let me do the talking, please."

The young woman looked at Pemberton, then at Foley. Foley nodded, and Pemberton said: "This dog is a police dog whose name is Prince?"

"Yes, sir."

"And he lives here in the house?"

"Yes, sir, of course. He's Mr. Foley's dog."

"How long has he been here?"

"We've been here for about a year."

"And the dog has been with you all of that time?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, has the dog been howling?"

"Howling? No, sir. He barked once yesterday when a peddler came to the door, but there hasn't been any howling."

"How about nights? Has he done any howling at night?"

"No, sir."

"Barking?"

"No, sir."

"You're certain about that?"

"Of course, I'm certain."

"Has the dog been acting strangely?"

"Well," she said, "he looked to me as though he'd been poisoned, and I tried to give him some salt. That's what Mr. Foley told me to do under those circumstances. Perhaps I shouldn't have done it. Perhaps he was just having some sort of a spasm, but..."

"That isn't what I mean," said Pemberton. "I mean has the dog shown any unusual symptoms, aside from this matter of poisoning?"

"No, sir."

Pemberton turned to Perry Mason.

"Suppose there's any chance this client of yours tried to poison the dog, Mason?"

"Not a chance in the world," said Perry Mason positively.

"Understand," said Foley hastily, "I'm not making any accusations against Mr. Cartright. I don't think he's the type that would poison a dog - however, he's really not responsible."

"Well," said the young woman positively, "I don't know where he got it from, but somebody gave him some poison. I'm willing to swear to that. He was a sick dog until after I gave him the salt, and then he got better."

"What does salt do?" asked Pemberton of Foley.

"It's a powerful and immediate emetic," Foley said.

Pemberton looked back at the girl.

"And you're willing to swear that the dog hasn't been howling?"

"Of course I am."

"If he had howled, would you have heard him?"

"Yes."

"Where do you sleep, in the house?"

"Yes, on the upper floor."

"And who else is in the house?"

"There's Ah Wong, the cook, but he sleeps out over the garage. And then there's Mrs. Foley."

"I think, officer," said Foley, "that it will, perhaps, be better for you to talk with my wife, and she can tell you..."

"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Benton, "I didn't want to tell you in front of these gentlemen, but your wife isn't here."

Foley stared at her with eyes that showed incredulous surprise.

"Isn't here?" he said. "Good heavens, girl, she couldn't have gone out! She's recovering from influenza."

"Nevertheless, she went out," said Mrs. Benton.

"How did she go? The cars aren't gone."

"In a taxi."

"Good heavens!" said Foley. "The woman will kill herself. What's the idea of going out when she's just recovering from influenza?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Did she say where she was going? Was she going shopping, calling, or what? Did she receive any messages? Was there something urgent? Come on, speak up! Don't be so mysterious."

"She left you a note, sir."

"A note?"

"Yes."

"Where is it?"

"Upstairs in her room. She left it on the dresser and asked me to see that you received it."

Foley stood staring at the woman, his forehead puckered, his eyes suddenly hard.

"Look here," he said, "you're keeping something from me."

The young housekeeper lowered her eyes.

"She took a suitcase with her," she said.

"A suitcase?" Foley exclaimed. "Was she going to a hospital?"

"I don't know. She didn't say. She simply left the note."

Foley looked at the deputy sheriff.

"May I be excused for a moment?" he asked.

"Certainly," said Pemberton, "go right ahead."

Foley strode into the house. Perry Mason looked at Mrs. Benton, studying her face closely.

"Was there," he asked, "some trouble between you and Mrs. Foley immediately prior to her departure?"

The young woman drew herself up and stared at him in haughty insolence.

"I don't know who you are," she said, "but I do know that I don't have to answer your absurd questions or your dirty insinuations," and she turned and flounced into the house.

Pemberton grinned over at Perry Mason and bit the end off a cigar.

"That," he said, "for you."

"The girl's tried to make herself up as ugly as possible," Mason said, frowning, "but she's rather young to be a housekeeper, and there's just a chance that while Mrs. Foley was ill in bed, there might have been some developments which brought about the woman's sudden departure."

"Not gossiping, are you, Mason?" asked Pemberton.

"No," said Mason gravely, "I'm speculating, that's all."

"Why speculate?"

"Because," said Perry Mason, "when a man makes an accusation against my client, claiming my client's insane, that man has got to be prepared to have a fight on his hands."

The back door opened, and Mrs. Benton came out.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Mr. Foley wants you to come in. I shouldn't have got mad and walked away. Will you excuse it?"

"Don't mention it," said Bill Pemberton. "The fault was ours," and he looked at Perry Mason.

"I came out here," said Perry Mason, "to get information, and to see that my client had a square deal."

"No," said Bill Pemberton slowly, "we came out here to see if the dog had been howling. That's about as far as I figure we're going to pry into the situation here."

Perry Mason said nothing.

The young woman led them through the back door, into a kitchen. A small, slender Chinese, attired in a cook apron, regarded them with glittering, beady eyes.

"Whassa malla?" he asked.

"We're trying to find out about the dog..." Perry Mason began, but was interrupted by Pemberton.

"Just a moment, Mason, please," he said; "let me handle this. I understand handling these Chinks pretty well."

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Ah Wong."

"You cook here?"

"I cook."

"You savvy him one piecie dog?"

"Heap savvy."

"You hear dog makum noise? Hearum make howl at night?"

The Chinese shook his head slowly.

"Dog no howl?" asked Pemberton.

"No howl," said the Chinese.

Pemberton shrugged his shoulders.

"Shucks," he said, "that's all we need. You can see for yourself, Mason, how it is. Your man just went off his nut, that's all."

"Well," Perry Mason told him, "I'd have asked the questions of this Chinese boy in a little different way."

"That's all right," Pemberton said, "I know how to handle them. Had lots of experience on lottery cases. You've got to talk to them that way. They don't savvy any other kind of lingo. It's the way they talk and the way they learn English. That's the way you get the facts out of them. You go ahead and spout a lot of language they don't understand, and they'll say yes, every time, and not know what they're saying yes to."

"I think," said Mrs. Benton, "that Mr. Foley would like to have you gentlemen wait in the library, if you care to. He'll be with you in just a moment."

She held open the door of the kitchen, and the two men walked through a serving pantry, a dining room, a living room, turned to the left and entered a library, the walls of which were lined with books. There was a huge table running down the center of the room, deep leather chairs, each with a floor lamp by it, and tall windows, with heavy drapes which could be pulled along poles by an ingenious cord arrangement, so as to shut out every bit of outside light.

"I think," said Mrs. Benton, "that if you will just be seated..."

A door opened explosively, and Clinton Foley stood on the threshold, his face twisting with emotion, his eyes glittering. A paper was in his hand.

"Well," he said, "it's all over. You don't need to worry about the dog."

The deputy sheriff puffed on his cigar complacently.

"I quit worrying about him as soon as I talked with this girl and the Chink cook," he said. "We're going over and see Cartright now."

Foley laughed, and his laugh was harsh and metallic. At the sound of that laugh, Bill Pemberton took the cigar from his lips, and stared with a perplexed frown.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"My wife," said Clinton Foley, drawing himself up with some dignity, "has seen fit to run away. She has left with another man."

Pemberton said nothing. Perry Mason stood with feet wide apart, staring from Foley to the young housekeeper, then glancing at Pemberton.

"It may interest you gentlemen to know," said Foley, speaking with the ponderous dignity of one who is trying to conceal his emotions, "that the object of her affections, the man who has supplanted me in her life, is none other than the gentleman who lived next door - our esteemed contemporary, Mr. Arthur Cartright, the man who made all of the hullabaloo about the howling dog, in order to get me before the police authorities, so that he could carry out his scheme of running away with my wife."

Perry Mason said in an undertone to Pemberton: "Well, that shows the man isn't crazy; he's crazy like a fox."

Foley came striding into the room, glowering at Perry Mason.

"That will do, sir," he said. "You are here by sufferance only. You will keep your remarks to yourself."

Perry Mason made no move, but with his feet planted apart, shoulders squared, eyes staring in somber appraisal at the man, said slowly: "I'm here to represent my client. You made the accusation that he was crazy and offered to produce evidence. I'm here to see the thing is handled in such a manner that his interests are protected. You can't bluff me a damn bit."

Clinton Foley seemed beside himself. He drew back his right hand, his mouth was twisting and quivering.

Bill Pemberton stepped forward hastily.

"There, there," he said soothingly, "let's not fly off the handle, Foley."

Foley took a deep breath, controlled himself by an effort, just when it seemed he was about to swing his fist at Perry Mason's jaw.

Perry Mason stood perfectly still, not budging so much as an inch.

Foley turned slowly to Pemberton and said in a low, choking voice:

"There's something we can do with swine like that; can't we get out a warrant for his arrest?"

"I think you can," said Pemberton. "But that's up to the district attorney. How do you know she went with him?"

"She says so in this note," said Foley. "Here, read it."

He thrust it into Pemberton's hands, and abruptly turned away, walking to the other end of the room. He lit a cigarette with a hand that trembled, bit his lip, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose violently.

Mrs. Benton remained in the room, making no excuses, giving no explanations. Twice she looked long and intently toward Clinton Foley, but Foley had turned his back and was standing at the window, staring out with unseeing eyes.

Perry Mason moved forward and peered over Pemberton's shoulder, as the deputy sheriff unfolded the note. Pemberton shifted so that Mason could not see the note, and Mason good-naturedly put a hand on Pemberton's shoulder, turned him back. "Be a sport," he said.

Pemberton made no further effort to conceal the contents of the letter. Perry Mason read it at the same time Pemberton read it.

The note was in ink and read:

"DEAR CLINTON:

"It is with greatest reluctance that I take the step I am about to take. I know your pride and how much you dislike publicity. I have tried to do this in such a manner that you will be hurt as little as possible. After all, you have been good to me. I thought that I loved you. Up until a few days ago I was absolutely sincere in that belief, then I found out who our next door neighbor was. At first, I was angry, or thought I was angry. He was spying on me with glasses. I should have told you, but something led me to keep it from you. I wanted to see him, and when you were gone I arranged an interview.

"Clinton, there's no use keeping up the pretense any longer. I can't stay with you. I really don't love you; it was just a fascination of the moment - something that has worn itself out.

"You are just a big magnetic animal. You can't overlook a woman, any more than a moth can overlook a flame. I know of the things that have happened right here in the house, and I don't blame you because I don't think you are to blame. I don't think you can help it, but I do know that I don't love you any more. I don't think I ever did. I think it was simply that fascination, that peculiar hypnotic charm which you exercise over women. At any rate, I am going away with him, Clinton.

"I am doing it in such a way that you will be spared any publicity. I am not even telling Thelma Benton where I am going. She only knows that I am taking a suitcase and going away. You can tell her that I have gone to visit some of my relatives, if you wish. If you don't give the affair any publicity, you can rest assured that I will not.

"In your way, you have been good to me. You have gratified my every material wish. The only thing that you can't give me is the love of a true man, nor can you satisfy that hunger in my soul which only he can satisfy. I am going with him, and know that I will be happy.

"Please try to forget me. Believe me,

"Your sincere well-wisher,

"EVELYN"

Mason spoke in a low voice.

"She doesn't mention Cartright's name," he said.

"No," Pemberton said, "but she mentions him as being the man next door."

"And," said Perry Mason, in the same low tone, "there's something else about that letter that..."

Foley abruptly whirled from the window. The tragic grief which had seemed to affect him so strongly, was gone. There was cold, purposeful rage in his voice and manner.

"Look here," he said, "I'm a wealthy man. I'm willing to give every goddamned cent I've got to have that hound brought to justice. He's crazy, and my wife is crazy. They're both of them crazy. That man's broken up my home; he's accused me of crime; he's tricked me, trapped me, and betrayed me, and, by God, he's going to pay for it! I want you to catch him, and I want him prosecuted on every count you can bring up - violation of ordinances, crossing state lines, or anything else. Spare no expense. I'll pay the bill, no matter what it is."

"Okay," said Bill Pemberton, folding the letter and handing it back to Foley. "I'll go back and make a report. You'd better come back with me. You can talk with Pete Dorcas. Dorcas can figure out some charges to put against this man. Then you can hire some private detective agency, if you want to spend some money."

"I wonder," said Perry Mason, "if there's a telephone here I could use?"

Foley looked at him with cold fury.

"You can use the telephone," he said, "and then you can get out."

"Thanks for the invitation," said Perry Mason calmly, "I'll use the telephone anyway."

CHAPTER V

PERRY MASON got Della Street on the telephone.

"Mason talking, Della," he said. "I'm out at Clinton Foley's house. He's the one who owns the dog that Cartright was complaining about. Did you get any word from Cartright?"

"No, Chief," she said. "I rang the place every ten minutes for more than an hour, and no one answered."

"All right," he said, "I guess no one's going to answer. It seems that Foley's wife ran off with our client."

"What?" she exclaimed.

"Fact," he told her. "The woman left a note telling Foley all about it. He's furious and is going to arrest Cartright. He and Pemberton are on their way up to the district attorney's office to try and get out a warrant."

"What grounds can they get a warrant on?" asked Della Street. "I thought there could only be a civil action for that."

"Oh, they'll find some crime that they can pin on him," said Perry Mason cheerfully. "It won't be anything that'll hold water, but it'll be enough to save their faces. You see, Cartright evidently used this excuse about the howling dog to decoy Foley away from the house. When Foley went up to the district attorney's office this morning, Cartright skipped out with Foley's wife. Naturally, the district attorney's office won't like that. It will make a funny story for the newspapers."

"Are the newspapers going to get hold of it?" asked Della Street.

"I don't know. I can't tell too much about it right now, but I'm going to work on the case, and I just wanted to let you know that you didn't need to try to get Cartright any more."

"You'll be in the office soon?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said, "it'll be a little while."

"Going to see the district attorney?" she inquired.

"No," he told her, "you can't get me anywhere until I show up or telephone again. But here's something I want you to do. Ring up Drake's Detective Bureau and get Paul Drake to drop anything he's got and come to my office. Have him waiting there when I return. I think it's going to be important as the very devil, so be sure that Drake delegates anything he's working on now, and that he's there in person."

"I'll do that," she said. "Anything else, Chief?"

"That's all," he said. "Be seeing you. 'Bye."

He hung up the receiver, walked from the little closet where the telephone was placed, and encountered the hostile eyes of the housekeeper.

"Mr. Foley said that I was to show you out," she remarked.

"That's all right," Mason told her. "I'm going out, but you might pick up twenty dollars if you wanted to make a little pocket money."

"I don't want to make any pocket money," she said. "My orders were to show you out."

"If," said Perry Mason, "you could find me a photograph of Mrs. Clinton Foley, it might be worth twenty dollars to you. It might even be worth twenty-five dollars.

Her face did not change expression.

"My orders," she said coldly, "were to show you out."

"Well," said Perry Mason, "would you mind telling Mr. Foley on his return that I tried to bribe you to get a picture of his wife?"

"My orders," she said, "were to show you out."

There was the sound of a bell jangling its summons. Mrs. Benton frowned, then looked at Perry Mason, and, for a moment, the mask of her manner dropped from her. There was feminine petulance in her tone.

"Will you please leave?" she said.

"Sure," said Perry Mason, "I'm going."

She escorted him to the front door, and, as they walked through the hall, the bell rang twice more.

"Shall I get you a taxicab?" she asked.

"No," said Mason, "don't worry about me."

Abruptly, she turned to him.

"Why," she asked, "are you so anxious to get a picture of Mrs. Foley?"

"Just wanted to see what she looks like," Perry Mason retorted cheerfully.

"No, that wasn't it. You had some reason."

As Mason was about to answer, the bell rang again, and there was the sound of knuckles banging against the wood.

The young woman gave an exclamation of annoyance, and hurried toward the door. As she opened it, three men pushed their way into the hallway.

"Clinton Foley live here?" asked one of the men.

"Yes," said Mrs. Benton.

Perry Mason stepped back into the shadows of the hallway.

"Got a Chinese cook working here, haven't you? Fellow named Ah Wong?"

"Yes."

"All right, get him. We want to see him."

"He's in the kitchen."

"All right, go ahead and get him. Tell him we want to see him."

"But who are you?"

"We're officers - immigration officers. We're checking up on the Chinks. We've got a hot tip he's an illegal entry. Go and get him."

"I'll tell him," she said, and turning on her heel, almost ran past Perry Mason.

The three men, heedless of Mason's presence, walked closely behind her.

After a moment, Perry Mason turned and followed them through the living room, dining room, and into the kitchen. He paused in the serving pantry, and heard the voices of the officers.

"All right, Ah Wong," said one of the men, "where's your certificate? You catchum chuck jee?"

"No savvy," said the Chinese.

"Oh, yes, you savvy," said the man. "Where your papers? Where your chuck jee? You heap catchum plenty fast."

"Heap no savvy," said the Chinese, with a wail of despair in his voice.

There was a good-natured laugh, the sound of a scuffle, then the man's voice said: "All right, Ah Wong, you come along with us. You show us where you sleep. You show us your things. You savvy? We help you look for chuck jee."

"No savvy, no savvy," wailed the Chinese. "Maybe so you callum somebody make inte'plet whassa malla."

"Forget it and come along."

"No savvy. You catchum inte'pleta."

A man laughed. "He savvies, all right," he said. "Look at his face."

Perry Mason heard the housekeeper's voice raised in protest.

"Can't you wait until Mr. Foley returns? I know that he'll do anything he can for Ah Wong. He's very wealthy, and he'll pay any fine, or put up any bail..."

"Nothing doing, sister," said one of the men. "We've been looking for Ah Wong for a while and there isn't enough money in the mint to keep him here. He's in the laboring class, and he's smuggled in from Mexico. He's headed back for China right now. Come on, Ah Wong, get your things packed."

Perry Mason turned around, tiptoed back the way he had come, and let himself out the front door. He walked down the stairs from the porch to the sidewalk, walked briskly along the sidewalk until he came to the house on the north, where Arthur Cartright lived. He turned in at the cement walk which ran across a well-kept lawn, ran up the steps, to the front porch, and pressed his thumb against the button of the doorbell. He could hear the bell jangling from the interior of the house, but could hear no sounds of motion. He pounded on the panels of the door with his knuckles, and received no answer. He moved along the porch until he came to a window, and tried to peer in the window, but the curtains were drawn. He returned to the door and rang the bell.

There were faint sounds of motion from the interior of the house, then shuffling steps, and a curtain was pulled back from a small, circular window in the center of the door. A thin, tired face peered out at him, while weary, emotionless eyes studied him.

After an interval, a lock clicked back, and the door opened.

Perry Mason was facing a gaunt woman of fifty-five, with faded hair, eyes that seemed to have been bleached of color, a thin, determined mouth, a pointed jaw and long, straight nose.

"What do you want?" she asked, in the even monotone of one who is deaf.

"I want Mr. Cartright," said Perry Mason in a loud voice.

"I can't hear you; you'll have to speak a little louder."

"I want Mr. Cartright, Mr. Arthur Cartright," Mason shouted.

"He isn't here."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know; he isn't here."

Perry Mason took a step toward her, placed his mouth close to her ear.

"Look here," he said, "I'm Mr. Cartright's lawyer. I've got to see him at once."

She stepped back and studied him with her weary, faded eyes, then slowly shook her head.

"I heard him speak of you," she said. "I knew he had a lawyer. He wrote you a letter last night, then he went away. He gave me the letter to mail, did you get it all right?"

Mason nodded.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Perry Mason," he shouted.

"That's right," she said. "That's the name that was on the envelope."

Her face was entirely placid, without so much as the faintest flicker of an expression. Her voice maintained the same even monotone.

Perry Mason moved toward her once more, placed his lips close to her ear, and yelled: "When did Mr. Cartright go out?"

"Last night about half past ten."

"Did he come back after that?"

"No."

"Did he take a suitcase with him?"

"No."

"Had he been packing any of his things?"

"No, he burned some letters."

"Acted as though he was getting ready to go away somewhere?"

"He burned letters and papers, that's all I know."

"Did he say where he was going when he went out?"

"No."

"Did he have a car?"

"No, he hasn't a car."

"Did he order a taxicab?"

"No, he walked."

"You didn't see where he went?"

"No, it was dark."

"Do you mind if I come in?"

"It won't do you any good to come in. Mr. Cartright isn't here."

"Do you mind if I come in and wait until he comes back?"

"He's been out all night. I don't know that he's going to come back."

"Did he tell you he wasn't coming back?"

"No."

"Are your wages paid?"

"That's none of your business."

"I'm his lawyer."

"It's still none of your business."

"You don't know what was in the letter you were given to mail to me last night?"

"No, that's none of my business. You mind your business and I'll mind mine."

"Look here," said Perry Mason, "this is important. I want you to go through the house and see if you can find anything that will help me. I've got to find Arthur Cartright. If he's gone somewhere, I've got to find where he's gone. You've got to find something that will give me a clew. I want to know whether he went by train, whether he went by automobile or whether he went by airplane. He must have made some reservations, or done something."

"I don't know," said the woman. "That's none of my business. I clean up the house for him, that's all. I'm deaf. I can't hear things that go on."

"What's your name?" asked Perry Mason.

"Elizabeth Walker."

"How long have you known Mr. Cartright?"

"Two months."

"Do you know anything about his friends? Do you know anything about his family?"

"I know nothing except about keeping the house."

"Will you be here later on?"

"Of course I'll be here. I'm supposed to stay here. That's what I'm paid for."

"How long will you stay if Mr. Cartright doesn't retturn?"

"I'll stay until my time's up."

"When will that be?"

"That," she said, "is my business, Mr. Lawyer. Good-by." She slammed the door with a force which shook the house.

Perry Mason stood staring at the door for a moment, with a half smile on his face. Then he turned and walked down the steps from the porch. As he reached the sidewalk, he felt the peculiar tingling sensation of the hairs at the base of his neck which caused him to whirl suddenly and stare.

He was in time to see heavy drapes slip back into place over a window in the house of Clinton Foley. He could not see the face that had been staring at him from that window.

CHAPTER VI

PAUL DRAKE was a tall man with drooping shoulders, a head that was thrust forward, eyes that held an expression of droll humor. Long experience with the vagaries of human nature had made him take everything, from murder down, with a serene tranquillity.

He was waiting in Perry Mason's office, when Mason returned.

Perry Mason smiled at Della Street, and said to the detective: "Come right in, Paul."

Drake followed him into the inner office.

"What's it all about?"

"I'll give it to you short and snappy," said Mason. "A man named Cartright, living at 4893 Milpas Drive, complains that a chap named Clinton Foley, living at 4889 Milpas Drive, has a dog that howls. Cartright is nervous, perhaps a little bit unbalanced. I take him to Pete Dorcas to get a complaint and arrange to have Dr. Charles Cooper look him over. Cooper diagnoses it as manic depressive psychosis; nothing serious. That is, it's functional, rather than organic. I insist that the continued howling of a dog can be very serious to a man of such nervous instability. Dorcas writes Foley a summons to appear and show cause why a warrant shouldn't be issued.

"Foley gets the summons, shows up at the district attorney's office this morning, and I go over. Foley claims the dog hasn't been howling. Dorcas is ready to commit Cartright as insane. I put up a fight, and claim Foley's lying about the dog. He offers to take us to witnesses to prove the dog didn't howl. We go out to his house. His wife has been sick in bed. He's got a housekeeper who's a good-looking Jane, but tries to make herself look older than she is, and uglier. The dog is a police dog they've had for about a year. The housekeeper reports somebody poisoned the dog early in the morning. She gave him a bunch of salt, got him to throw up the poison, and saved his life. The dog, apparently, was having spasms. He bit her on the right hand and arm. She's wearing a bandage that looks as though a physician had put it on, so it seems the bite was pretty serious, or else she was afraid the dog was mad. She says the dog hasn't been howling. The Chink cook says the dog hasn't been howling.

"Foley goes to talk with his wife, and finds she's gone. The housekeeper says she left a note. Foley gets the note, and it's a note telling him that she doesn't really love him; that it was just one of those fatal fascinations, and all that line of hooey a woman springs when she's falling out of love with some man, and into love with another. She says that she's leaving with the man next door, and that she really loves him."

Drake's expression of droll humor broadened into a grin.

"You mean she ran away with the crazy guy next door that thought the dog was howling?"

"That seems to be the sketch. Foley claims Cartright made up the complaint about the howling dog out of whole cloth and worked it as a scheme to get him away from his house so that Cartright would have a clear field to walk away with Mrs. Foley."

Drake chuckled.

"And Foley still claims Cartright's crazy!" he exclaimed.

Perry Mason grinned.

"Well," he said, "he wasn't claiming the man was crazy quite so strong when I left."

"How did it affect him?" asked the detective.

"That's the funny thing," said Mason. "I'd swear he was putting it on too thick. He either wasn't as broken up as he pretended to be, or else there was something that he was trying to cover up. I think he's had an affair with his housekeeper. I think the wife intimated as much in the note. At any rate, he's been playing around. He's one of these big, dominant men with a vibrant voice and a strong personality. He's got a great deal of poise, and seemed to have quite a bit of control over his temper. He was magnanimous and broad-minded when he was up in the district attorney's office, trying to get Cartright committed. He claimed that he wanted to do it only because he thought Cartright needed treatment. He said that he'd put up with a lot of espionage before making a complaint.

"Now, a man of that type wouldn't fly off the handle the way he did, under ordinary circumstances, when he found that his wife was gone - not a man of his type. He isn't a one-woman man. He's the kind who plays the field."

"Maybe it's something about Cartright that he hates," Drake suggested.

"That's exactly the point that I'm coming to," the lawyer told him. "The woman's note indicated that she had known Cartright and had been acquainted with him. Cartright moved into the house about two months ago. Foley has been in his place for about a year, and there's some stuff about it I can't understand.

"It's a big place and in an exclusive neighborhood. Foley must have money; yet he and his wife were getting along with just a cook and a housekeeper. Apparently there was no butler, valet or chauffeur. I think you'll find they didn't do any entertaining at all. Ordinarily, I would have said the house was far too big for them, but not only are they living in it, without a chauffeur, but Foley is having an addition built onto the garage. It's of reinforced concrete, and the thing is being finished up this morning. They've poured the floor, and the rest of the building is finished."

"Well, what's wrong with that?" asked Drake. "He's got a right to build an addition onto his garage, hasn't he?"

"But what does he want it for?" asked Mason. "The garage is big enough to hold three cars. Foley has got two cars in there, and he doesn't keep a chauffeur."

"Perhaps he wanted to get a car for his housekeeper," said Drake, grinning.

"Perhaps," Mason admitted. "Or he may want separate quarters."

"No use speculating," Drake said. "Where do I come in?"

"I want you," said Mason, "to find out everything you can about Foley - where he came from and why; also the same thing about Cartright. I want you to put just as many men to work as you can use to advantage. I want the information, and I want it fast, and I want it in advance of the police, if I can get it.

"I think you'll find there's something fishy about this whole business. I think you'll find that Cartright knows Foley, or has known him sometime in the past, and that he came to the neighborhood, rented the house that he did, for the deliberate purpose of spying on Foley. I want to know why."

Paul Drake stroked his chin meditatively, then let his eyes casually drift to the lawyer's face.

"Come clean," he said. "What's the lowdown?"

"I've given you the lowdown, Paul."

"Oh, no, you haven't, Perry. You're representing a client who complained about a howling dog. The client has gone by-by with a married woman. Apparently she's a good looking married woman. Everybody's happy except the outraged husband. He's gone up to the district attorney's office. You know that he isn't going to get very much out of the district attorney except a song and dance. There's no reason for you to get so worked up about this thing, unless there's something that you haven't told me about."

"Well," said Mason slowly, "I think I may be representing more than one person. I haven't stopped to figure exactly the professional ethics of the situation, hut there's a chance I may be representing Mrs. Foley, as well."

"Well," said Drake, grinning, "she's happy, isn't she?"

"I don't know," said Perry Mason, his eyes narrowing. "I want to get all of the dope that I can on the entire situation, and I want to find out just who these people are, and where they came from."

"Got any photographs?" asked Drake.

"No, I haven't. I tried to get some, but couldn't get them. There's a deaf housekeeper out at Cartright's place, and I told you the hook-up on the housekeeper at Foley's place. I tried to bribe her to get some pictures, and didn't get anywhere with it. She'll tell Foley, that's a cinch. Apparently she's loyal to him. Here's another funny thing: just before I left, immigration officers came and picked up the Chink cook for deportation, on the ground that he didn't have a certificate, and I guess he didn't. He's a Chinese of around forty or forty-five, and unless he's native born, he's probably headed for China."

"Will Foley put up a fight for him?"

"The girl said he would," Mason answered.

"What girl?"

"The housekeeper."

"Girl, eh?"

"Well, she's a young woman."

"You seem to think she's got plenty of IT."

"She's got something," said Mason slowly, "and I don't know what it is. She's gone to a lot of trouble to make herself up so she looks plain and homely. Women don't ordinarily do that."

Paul Drake grinned slowly.

"Women ordinarily do anything they damned please," he said.

Perry Mason said nothing for a few minutes, but drummed silently with his fingertips on the surface of the desk. Then he looked over at Paul Drake.

"The housekeeper says that Mrs. Foley left there in a taxicab this morning. Now, Cartright left his place last night and didn't come back. He was in very much of a hurry, because he sent an important letter to me by special delivery, but had his housekeeper mail it. Now, if you can find the taxicab that called for Mrs. Foley, and find where she was taken, you're quite likely to find some trace of Cartright at that place. That is, if the housekeeper is telling the truth."

"You think she isn't?"

"I don't know. I want to get all of the facts, then I'll sift them and sort them. I want the most complete reports possible. Put enough men on it to familiarize yourself with every angle of the case. Find out who these people are, where they've been, what they're doing and why."

"Put a tail on Foley?"

"Yes, put a tail on Foley. But don't let him know it. I want him watched wherever he goes."

Paul Drake got to his feet and ambled in a leisurely way toward the door.

"I get you," he said, "I'll get started."

He opened the door, stepped through the outer office and vanished.

Apparently the man moved with a shambling, leisurely stride; yet an ordinary man would have been hard put to keep up with him. Paul Drake's efficiency, both in his work and in his motions, lay in the fact that he never became excited and never wasted time in lost motion.

When the detective had gone, Perry Mason summoned Della Street into his office.

"Della," he said, "cancel every appointment that I've got. Hold everything wide open. Clear the decks for action."

She let her shrewd hazel eyes study him in calm appraisal.

"You know something?" she asked.

"Nothing much," he told her. "It's just a hunch. I think something's going to break."

"You mean in that Cartright case?"

He nodded.

"How about the money? Do you want that put in the bank?"

He nodded again. He arose from his chair and started pacing the office, with the restless stride of a lion pacing a cage.

"What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," he told her, "but things don't click."

"How do you mean they don't click?"

"They don't fit together. They look all right on the surface, except for a loose joint or two, but those loose joints are significant. There's something wrong."

"Have you any idea what it is?"

"Not yet, but I'm going to have."

She walked toward the outer office, paused in the door to flash him a solicitous glance. Her eyes were warm with affection.

He was pacing the floor back and forth, thumbs thrust in the armholes of his vest, head forward, eyes staring intently at the carpet.

CHAPTER VII

IT WAS ten minutes before five when Perry Mason called Pete Dorcas on the telephone.

"Perry Mason talking, Pete. How do I stand with you?"

"Not very high," said Dorcas, but there was a trace of humor in his rasping, querulous voice. "You're too damned belligerent. Any time a fellow tries to do you a favor, he gets into trouble. You get too enthusiastic over your clients."

"I wasn't enthusiastic," said Mason; "I simply claimed the man wasn't crazy."

Dorcas laughed.

"Well," he said, "you're sure right on that. The man wasn't crazy. He played things pretty foxy."

"What are you doing about it; anything?"

"No. Foley came in here all steamed up. He wanted to get warrants issued right and left; wanted to turn the universe upside down, and then he wasn't so certain that he wanted the publicity. He asked me to wait until he communicated with me again."

"Well, did you hear from him later?"

"Yes, about ten minutes ago."

"What did he say?"

"Said that his wife had sent him a telegram from some little town down the state - Midwick, I think it was, begging him not to do anything that would bring about a lot of newspaper publicity. She said it wouldn't do him any good, and would do them all a lot of harm."

"What did you do?"

"Oh, the usual thing. I pigeonholed it. It's nothing except a man's wife running off with somebody else. They're free, white and twenty-one, and know what they're doing. Of course, if they set up a meretricious relationship, openly and defiantly in some community, that will be a problem for that community to handle, but we can't spend a lot of time and money bringing some fellow's wife back to him when she doesn't want to come.

"Of course, he's got a good civil action against your client, Cartright, and the way Foley was talking this morning, he was going to file actions for alienation of affections, and everything else he could think of, but I have an idea he's changing his mind on that."

"Well," Mason told him, "I just wanted you to know the way I felt about it. I gave you a fair deal right from the start. I gave you a chance to have a doctor there to look Cartright over."

"Well, the man isn't crazy, that's a cinch," Dorcas said. "I'll buy you a cigar the next time I see you."

"No, I'm going to buy you the cigars," Mason told him. "In fact, I'm having a box sent over right now. How long you going to be at the office?"

"About fifteen minutes."

"Stick around," said Mason, "the cigars will be there."

He hung up the telephone, went to the door of his outer office and said to Della Street: "Ring up the cigar stand across the street from the Hall of Justice. Tell them to take a box of fifty-cent cigars up to Pete Dorcas, and charge them to me. I think he's got them coming."

"Yes, sir," she said. "Mr. Drake telephoned while you were talking on the line to Dorcas. He says he's got something for you, and I told him to come up, that you'd be anxious to see him."

"Where was he, down in his office?"

"Yes."

"All right," said Mason, "when he comes, send him right in."

He walked back to his desk and had no sooner sat down than the door opened, and Paul Drake walked into the room with that same ungainly stride which masked such efficiency of motion as to make his advance seem unhurried, yet he was seated in a chair across from the lawyer, with a cigarette going, before the door check had closed the door.

"Well," said Mason, "what have you found out?"

"Lots of stuff."

"All right, go ahead and tell me."

Drake pulled a notebook from his pocket.

"Is it so much you can't tell me without a notebook?" asked Mason.

"It sure is, and it's cost you a lot of money."

"I don't care about that, I wanted the information."

"Well, we got it. We had to burn up the wires and get a couple of affiliated agencies working on the case."

"Never mind that; give me the dope."

"She isn't his wife," said Paul Drake.

"Who isn't?"

"The woman who lived with Foley at 4889 Milpas Drive, and went under the name of Evelyn Foley."

"Well," said Mason, "that's no great shock to me. To tell you the truth, Paul, that's one of the reasons I wanted you to work on the case. I had an idea that she wasn't."

"How did you get that idea? From something Cartright told you?" asked the detective.

"You tell me what you know first," said Mason.

"Well," said Drake, "the woman's name wasn't Evelyn. That's her middle name. Her first name was Paula. Her full name is Paula Evelyn Cartright. She's the wife of your client, Arthur Cartright."

Perry Mason slowly nodded.

"You haven't surprised me yet, Paul," he said.

"Well, I probably won't surprise you with anything, then," said Drake, thumbing the pages of his notebook. "Here's the dope: Clinton Foley's real name is Clinton Forbes. He and his wife, Bessie Forbes, lived in Santa Barbara. They were friendly with Arthur Cartright and Paula Cartright. The friendship between Forbes and Mrs. Cartright ripened into an intimacy, and they ran away together. Neither Bessie Forbes nor Arthur Cartright knew where the others had gone. It was quite a scandal in Santa Barbara. The people mingled with the better class of society there, and you can imagine what a choice bit of scandal it made. Forbes was independently wealthy, and he translated all of his belongings into cash so that he could carry it with him, without leaving any back trail. They left by automobile, and left no clews as to where they were going.

"Cartright, however, managed to find them. I don't know how he did it. He traced Forbes, and found that Clinton Foley was, in reality, Clinton Forbes, and that the woman who went under the name of Evelyn Foley was, in reality, Paula Cartright, his wife."

"Then," said Perry Mason slowly, "why did Cartright get the adjoining house and spy on Foley, or Forbes, whichever you want to call him?"

"What the devil could he do?" asked Drake. "The woman left of her own free will. She ran away from him. He couldn't have gone over and said: 'Here I am, sweet heart,' and have her fall into his arms."

"You haven't got the idea yet," Mason said.

Drake looked at him for a moment, and then said: "You mean he was plotting revenge?"

"Yes," Mason said.

"Well," the detective drawled, "when he finally got around to springing his plan for revenge, it didn't amount to anything more than complaining about the howling of a dog. That's not much of a revenge. You've heard the story about the irate husband who cut holes in the umbrella of a man who was entertaining his wife."

"Wait a minute," Mason said. "I'm not joking; I'm serious."

"Well, all right," Drake remarked. "Suppose you are serious? What does that buy us?"

"The theory of the district attorney's office is that Cartright complained about the howling dog merely in order to get Foley away from home, so Cartright could run off with Foley's wife."

"Well?" asked the detective.

"It doesn't make sense," the lawyer said. "In the first place, why go to all that elaborate trouble in order to get Foley away from home? In the second place, there must have been some previous talks between Cartright and his wife. He must have known where she was, and she must have known where he was. Those talks necessarily took place in the absence of Foley. Having decided that they were going to go back together and patch things up, why the devil didn't Cartright walk over to the place, cuss Foley out and take his wife?"

"Probably because he didn't have the guts," Drake said. "There are people like that."

"All right," Mason agreed patiently, "let's suppose you're right on that. Then he went to the law, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"How much simpler it would have been to go to the law and complain that Foley was living in a meretricious relationship with his wife, and have the law step in. Or, he could have hired me as his attorney, and I'd have gone out there and pulled the woman out of the house damned quick. That is, if she wanted to get away. Or, the woman could simply have walked out. After all, Cartright had all of the legal rights on his side."

Drake shook his head.

"Well," he said, "that's up to you. What you wanted me to do was to get the facts. You were going to put them together."

Mason nodded slowly.

"What do you think happened?" asked Drake.

"I don't know," Mason said, "but I'm telling you that the thing doesn't click. It doesn't fit together and it doesn't make sense, and the farther we go into it, the less sense it makes."

"Now, then ' Drake said, "who are you representing?"

"I'm not entirely certain," Mason said slowly. "I'm representing Arthur Cartright, and I may be representing his wife, or I may be representing Foley's wife. By the way, what happened to her?"

"You mean Forbes?" asked the detective.

"Foley or Forbes, it's all the same. I know him as Foley; that's the way I first met him, so that's the way I describe him."

"Well," said Drake, "we haven't had any luck on tracing Mrs. Forbes yet. Naturally, she felt quite a bit disgraced and she left Santa Barbara, but we don't know where she went. You know how a woman would feel about those things, particularly when a man didn't give her any warning, but simply disappeared and took a friend's wife with him."

Mason nodded slowly, and reached for his hat.

"I think," he said, "that I'm going out and talk with this Clinton Forbes, alias Clinton Foley."

"Well," Drake told him, "every man to his taste. You may have your hands full. He's got the reputation for being a belligerent customer, and having the devil's own temper. I found that out in checking back on his career in Santa Barbara."

Mason nodded absently.

"That's one thing they can't ever say about you," Drake remarked. "They can't ever say you haven't got guts. You go out of your way in order to get into trouble."

Perry Mason shook his head, paused for a moment, then walked back to his desk, sat down and picked up the telephone.

"Della," he said, "get me Clinton Foley on the line. His residence is 4889 Milpas Drive. I want to talk with him personally."

"What's the idea?" asked Drake.

"I'm going to make an appointment with him. I'm not going to chase all the way out there, only to find that I've run up a taxi bill."

"If he knows you're coming, he'll have a couple of bouncers waiting to throw you out," the detective warned.

"Not after I get done talking with him, he won't," Mason said grimly.

Paul Drake sighed and lit a cigarette.

"A fool for a fight," he said.

"No, I'm not," Mason told him. "But you overlook the fact that I'm representing my clients. I'm a paid gladiator. I have to go in and fight; that's what they hire me for. Any time I get weak kneed so I don't have guts enough to wade in and fight, I've unfitted myself to carry on my profession, at any rate, the branch of it that I specialize in. I'm a fighter. I'm hired to fight. Everything I got in the world, I got through fighting."

The telephone rang, and Mason scooped up the receiver.

"Mr. Foley on the line," Della Street's voice said.

"Okay," Mason told her.

There was the click of the connection, and then Foley's voice, vibrant with booming magnetism.

"Yes, hello, hello."

"Mr. Foley," said the lawyer, "this is Perry Mason, the attorney. I want to talk with you."

"I have nothing whatever to discuss with you, Mr. Mason," Foley said.

"I wanted to talk with you about the affairs of a client who lived in Santa Barbara," said Perry Mason.

There was a moment of silence. The buzzing noise of the wire was all that could be heard. Then Foley's voice came, pitched a note lower.

"And what was the name of this client?" he asked.

"Well," Mason told him, "we might agree on a tentative name of Forbes."

"Man or woman?" asked Foley.

"A woman - a married woman. Her husband had run off and left her."

"And what did you want to see me about?" Foley demanded.

"I'll explain that to you when I see you."

"Very well, when will you see me?"

"As soon as convenient."

"Tonight at eight-thirty?"

"Can you make it any earlier?"

"No."

"Very well, I will be at your place at nine o'clock tonight," said Mason, and slid the receiver back on the hook.

Paul Drake shook his head lugubriously.

"You do take the damnedest chances," he said. "You'd better have me go out there with you."

"No," Mason told him, "I'm going out there alone."

"All right," the detective said, "let me give you a tip, then. You'd better go prepared for trouble. That man's in a dangerous mood."

"What do you mean prepared for trouble?"

"Carry a gun," the detective said.

Perry Mason shook his head.

"I carry my two fists," he said, "and my wits. I fight with those. Sometimes I carry a gun, but I don't make a practice of it. It's bad training. It teaches one to rely entirely on a gun. Force should only be a last resort."

"Have it your own way," Drake remarked.

"How about the housekeeper?" said Mason. "You haven't told me about her yet."

"The housekeeper didn't change her name."

"You mean she was with Forbes before he became Foley?"

"That's right. Her name is Mrs. Thelma Benton. Her husband was killed in an automobile accident. She was employed as a private secretary to Forbes when he was in Santa Barbara. She accompanied him on his trip. But here's the funny thing: apparently Mrs. Cartright didn't know that Thelma Benton had been employed by Forbes as a secretary. The young woman came with them as a housekeeper, and Mrs. Cartright never knew she'd been Forbes' secretary."

"That's strange, isn't it?"

"Not particularly. You see, Forbes had an office in Santa Barbara where he transacted his business. Naturally he was rather secretive about it, because he was getting his affairs turned into cash. Evidently the secretary suspected a good deal, and he didn't want to leave her behind, or she didn't want to be left behind, I don't know which. She went with them when they left."

"How about the Chinese cook?"

"He's a new addition. They picked him up here."

Perry Mason shrugged his broad shoulders.

"The whole thing sounds goofy," he said. "I'll tell you a lot more about it tonight, however. You'd better be in your office, Paul, so I can call you if I want any information.

"Okay," Drake told him, "and I don't mind telling you that I'm going to have men outside, watching the house. You know, we've got a tail on Foley, and I'm just going to double it, so that if there's any trouble, all you've got to do is to kick out a window, or something, and the men will come in."

Perry Mason shook his head with the impatient gesture of a prizefighter shaking hair from in front of his eyes.

"Hell!" he said. "There isn't going to be any trouble."

CHAPTER VIII

THE big house silhouetted itself against the star-studded sky. There was a wind blowing from the south, with a hint of dampness, giving promise of a cloudiness later on in the evening.

Perry Mason looked at the luminous dial of his wristwatch. It was exactly eight-thirty.

He glanced behind him to see the tail light of the taxi-cab vanishing around a corner. He saw no trace of any watchers who were on duty. With steady, purposeful steps, he climbed the stairs from the cement walk to the porch, and walked to the front door of the house.

Perry Mason found the doorbell, pressed his thumb against it.

There was no answer.

He waited a moment, then rang again, with the same result.

Perry Mason looked at his watch, frowned impatiently, took a few steps along the porch, paused, came back, and pounded on the door. There was still no answer.

Perry Mason stepped to the door, looked down the corridor and saw a light coming from the door of the library. He pushed his way down the corridor and knocked on the library door.

There was no answer.

He turned the knob and shoved the door open.

The door moved some eighteen inches, then struck against something - an object which was heavy, yet yielding.

Perry Mason eased through the opening in the door, stared at the object which had blocked the door. It was a police dog, lying on his side, with a bullet hole in his chest and another in his head. Blood had trickled from the bullet wounds, along the floor, and when Mason had pushed the door open, moving the body, the stains had smeared over the hardwood floor.

Mason raised his head and looked around the library. At first he saw nothing. Then, at the far end of the room, he saw a blotch of shadow, from which protruded something grayish, which proved, on closer inspection, to be the clutching hand of a man.

Perry Mason walked around the table and switched on one of the floor lamps so that he could see into the corner.

Clinton Foley was stretched at full length on the floor.

One arm was outstretched, the hand clutched tightly. The other hand was doubled under the body.

The man wore a dressing gown of brown flannel, and had slippers on his bare feet. From the body was seeping a pool of red which reflected the floor lamp from its viscid surface.

Perry Mason did not touch the body. He leaned forward and saw that there was an athletic undershirt showing beneath the bathrobe, where it had fallen open at the neck.

He noticed, also, an automatic lying on the floor some six or eight feet from the body.

He turned back to look at the dead man, and saw then that there was something white showing on his chin. He bent forward and observed that it was a spot of caked lather. Part of the right side of the face had been freshly shaven. The evidences of the razor strokes were plainly visible.

Perry Mason walked to the telephone from which he had called his office on the occasion of his prior visit, and dialed the number of Paul Drake's office. After a moment, he heard Paul Drake's drawling voice on the telephone.

"Mason talking, Paul," said Perry Mason. "I'm out here at Foley's house. Can you get in touch with the men you have watching the house out here?"

"They're going to call in in five minutes," said Drake. "I'm having them make reports every fifteen minutes. There are two men on the job. One of them goes to the telephone every fifteen minutes."

"All right," Perry Mason said, "as soon as those men telephone, get them to come to your office at once."

"Both of them?" asked Paul Drake.

"Both of them," Mason said.

"What's the big idea?" asked Drake.

"I'll come to that in a minute," said Mason. "I want both of those men off the job and called into your office where I can talk with them. Do you get that?"

"Okay," Drake said, "I've got that. Anything else?"

"Yes. I want you to double your efforts to find Cartright and Mrs. Cartright."

"I've a couple of agencies working on that now. I'm expecting a report almost any minute."

"All right, get two more agencies working on it. Put up a reward. Anything you can. Now, here's something else."

"Okay," Drake said, "shoot."

"I want you to find Mrs. Forbes."

"You mean the wife that was left behind in Santa Barbara?"

"Yes."

"I think I'm getting a line on her, Perry. I've had some reports that look hot. I think she's going to be turned up almost any minute. I've got men working on some live leads there."

"All right, put on more men. Do anything you can."

"I get you," drawled Drake. "Now tell me what's happened. What's the idea of all the commotion? You had your appointment with Foley at eight thirty. It's now eight thirty-eight, and you say you're telephoning from his house. Did you reach some understanding with him?"

"No."

"Well," said Drake, "what happened?"

"I think," Mason told him, "it will be better if you don't know anything about that until you've followed out my instructions."

"Okay," Drake said. "When will I see you?"

"I don't know. I've got some formalities to go through with. It may be some little time before you see me. But get the men who are watching the house, and keep them under cover. Lock them in your office, if you have to. Don't let any one interview them until I get there. Do you understand that?"

"Okay. I wish you'd tell me what it's all about."

"You'll find out later, but keep those men sewed up tight."

"I'll have 'em on ice," Drake promised.

Perry Mason hung up the 'phone, then dialed the number of police headquarters.

A bored masculine voice answered.

"Police headquarters?" asked Mason.

"Yes."

"All right, get this and get it straight.

"This is Perry Mason, attorney at law. I am talking from the house of Clinton Foley at 4889 Milpas Drive. I had an appointment with Mr. Foley at eight thirty this evening. I came to the house, and found the door ajar. I repeatedly rang the bell and no one answered. I walked into the corridor, came to the library and found Clinton Foley dead. He's been shot twice, or perhaps more than that, with an automatic, at close range."

The voice came over the wire with sudden crisp interest. "What's that number - 4889 Milpas Drive?"

"That's right."

"And what's your name?"

"Perry Mason."

"Perry Mason, the lawyer?"

"That's right."

"Who's with you, anybody?"

"No."

"Who else is in the house?"

"No one that I know of."

"Well, then, stay right there. Don't touch anything. Don't let any one in. If there's any one else in the house, make them stay there. We're sending the Homicide Squad right out."

Perry Mason hung up the telephone, reached for a cigarette, thought better of it, put the case back in his pocket and walked back into the library. He made a hurried search of the library, then pushed his way through a door which opened from the rear of the library. He found that it opened into a bedroom. There was a light burning in the bedroom, and a suit of evening clothes was laid out on the bed.

Mason walked across the room and into a bathroom. On a shelf above the washbowl in the bathroom was a safety razor, shaving cream and a brush, to which lather still clung. The safety razor had been used.

Around a water pipe, leading to the bathtub, was a dog chain, and near the dog chain was a pan of water. On the other side was another pan which was empty. Perry Mason knelt and looked at that empty pan. The bottom of it was smeared with a greasy substance, and around the edges of the pan there were two or three particles of what appeared to be a canned dog food.

The far end of the chain terminated in a spring catch, so devised that a person need only press the prongs of the catch together, to spread the jaws and liberate a dog who might be chained to it.

Mason walked back to the library, ignored the corpse of the man, went to the body of the police dog. There was a collar around the neck, a collar which was shiny with age, and which bore a silver plate. On the silver plate, the words, "PRINCE. PROPERTY OF CLINTON FOLEY, 4889 MILPAS DRIVE," had been engraved. There was also a ring in the collar, in which the jaws of the spring catch on the end of the dog chain in the bathroom would have fitted.

Mason was careful to touch nothing, but moved about the room cautiously. He went back to the bedroom, through the bedroom to the bathroom, and made a second inspection.

Underneath the bathtub, he caught sight of a towel. He pulled out the towel, and noticed that it was still damp. He raised the towel to his nostrils, smelled it, and caught the odor of shaving cream.

As he straightened and pushed the towel back into the position where he had found it, he heard the sound of a siren in the distance, and the noise made by the exhaust of a police car.

Perry Mason walked through the library, into the corridor, noticing, as he did so, that there was barely room for him to squeeze through the door, without moving the body of the dog still further along the hardwood floor.

He walked along the corridor to the front door, and met the officers as they came pounding up on the porch.

CHAPTER IX

BRIGHT incandescents beat pitilessly down upon Perry Mason's face.

On his right, seated at a little table, a shorthand reporter took down everything Mason said.

Across from Mason, Detective Sergeant Holcomb stared at Mason, with eyes that showed a combination of puzzled bewilderment, and a vast irritation. Seated around in the shadows were three men of the homicide squad.

"You don't need to pull all that hokum," said Perry Mason.

"What hokum?" Sergeant Holcomb asked.

"All this business of the bright lights, and all of that. You aren't confusing me any."

Sergeant Holcomb took a deep breath.

"Mason," he said, "there's something about this that you're holding back. Now, we want to know what it is. A murder's been committed, and you're found prowling around the place."

"In other words, you think I shot him, is that it?" Mason countered.

"We don't know what to think," Holcomb said irritably. "We do know that you represented a client who gave every indication of showing incipient homicidal mania. We know that you occupied an adverse position all the way along the line to Clinton Foley, the murdered man. We don't know what you were doing out there. We don't know how you got in the house. We don't know just who it is you're trying to shield, but you're sure as hell trying to shield somebody."

"Maybe I'm trying to shield myself," Perry Mason remarked.

"I'm commencing to think so," Holcomb said.

"That," said Perry Mason, in a tone of finality, "shows just exactly how good a detective you are. If you'd use your brains, you'd realize that the mere fact I am a lawyer representing interests inimical to Clinton Foley would have made him very careful what he said and what he did. His manner toward me would have been one of extreme formality. I'd hardly be a friend that he'd receive in the informality of a bathrobe, with a face that was half shaven."

"Whoever did that job," Sergeant Holcomb said, "broke into the house. The first thing that happened was when the dog heard the intruder. Naturally, the dog would have ears that were more keen than those of his master. His master let the dog loose, and you had to shoot the dog in self-defense. At the sound of those shots, Clinton Foley came running into the room to see what was the matter, and you let him have it."

"You're satisfied of that?" asked Perry Mason.

"It's commencing to look that way."

"Then why don't you arrest me?"

"By God, I'm going to if you don't come clean on this thing! I never in my life ran onto a man in a murder case who was so delightfully indefinite. You say you had an appointment with Foley at eight-thirty. But you don't produce any evidence to prove it."

"What sort of evidence could I produce?"

"Didn't any one hear you make the appointment?"

"I can't remember, I'm sure. I didn't pay very much attention to it when I made it. I just made it in a casual way."

"How about the taxicab that took you out there?"

"I tell you it was a cruising cab. I don't remember what kind it was."

"You haven't got the cab receipt?"

"Certainly not. I don't go around saving receipts from taxi meters."

"What did you do with it? Drop it on the sidewalk?"

"I don't know as I ever saw it."

"You don't remember what sort of a cab you went out in? Whether it was a yellow, a checker, or a red top?"

"Hell, no! I tell you I don't remember all those details. I don't figure that I'm going to be cross-examined on everything I do. I'll tell you something else, too. As a detective, you're a false alarm. The way you reconstruct the scene of that murder shows that you don't know what happened."

"Ah," said Sergeant Holcomb, in the purring tone of one who is about to betray another into a damaging admission, "then you know what happened, do you?"

"I looked around," said Perry Mason, "the same as you did."

"Very well," Sergeant Holcomb said sarcastically, "go ahead and tell me what happened, if you will be so good."

"In the first place," said Perry Mason, "the dog was chained up when the murderer went into the house. Clinton Foley went out and saw the person who had entered the house, and talked with him for a minute. Then he went back and turned the dog loose. Then was when the dog was shot, and after that Clinton Foley was shot."

"What makes you say all of that?" asked Sergeant Holcomb. "You seem quite positive."

"Did you," asked Perry Mason with scathing sarcasm, "happen to notice a towel lying partially under the bathtub?"

Sergeant Holcomb hesitated for a moment, then said, "What of it?"

"On that towel," said Perry Mason, "was shaving cream."

"Well, what of that?"

"The towel was dropped there when Clinton Foley released the dog from the chain. Now, when a man shaves, he doesn't put shaving cream on a towel. He only gets shaving cream on a towel when he is wiping the lather from his face. He does that hastily, when he is interrupted in the middle of his shaving and wants to clean the surplus lather from his face. Now, Clinton Foley didn't do that when the dog first barked or when he first heard the intruder. He went into the other room to see what the dog was barking about, and faced an intruder. He talked with this person, and, while he was talking, he was wiping the lather off of his face onto the towel. Then something happened that made him go back and turn the dog loose. That's when the person fired the shot. You can figure it all out, from the fact that there's lather on that towel, if you want to use your brain to think with, instead of thinking up a lot of foolish questions."

There was a moment of silence in the room, then a voice said, from the shadow which formed a circle beyond the beating illumination of the shaded incandescents: "Yes, I saw that towel."

"If," said Perry Mason, "you fellows would realize something of the significance of that towel, and preserve it as evidence, you might manage to figure out how that murder took place. You have that towel analyzed, and you'll find it's packed with shaving cream that had been wiped from Clinton Foley's face. You notice there's a little lather left on his chin, but not a great deal - not as much as would be expected if he'd been shot while his face was lathered. Also, there's no trace of lather on the floor where his face was resting. I tell you, he wiped the lather off on that towel."

"I don't see what's to have kept him from wiping his face before he started out to see who was in the other room," Sergeant Holcomb protested, interested in spite of himself.

"Simply," said Perry Mason, "that he dropped the towel when he was unchaining the dog. If he had been going to unchain the dog in the first place, he wouldn't have wiped the lather from his face. He would have unchained the dog first, and then gone out and wiped the lather from his face."

"Well, then," said Sergeant Holcomb, "where's Arthur Cartright?"

"I don't know. I tried to find him earlier in the day. His housekeeper says he's gone away."

"Thelma Benton says that he ran away with Mrs. Foley," Sergeant Holcomb remarked.

"Yes," said Perry Mason, "she told me that."

"And that's what Clinton Foley told Pete Dorcas."

"So I understand," Mason said wearily. "Are we going to go over all that again?"

"No, we're not going over that again," snapped Sergeant Holcomb. "I'm simply telling you that it's exceedingly possible your client, Arthur Cartright, ran away with Mrs. Foley; that he heard from Mrs. Foley's lips a story of abuse she had suffered at the hands of her husband; that he went back, determined to kill Clinton Foley."

"And about the only evidence you've got to go on is the fact that Cartright was having some trouble with Clinton Foley and ran away with his wife. Is that right?"

"That's enough evidence to go on."

"All right," Perry Mason said, "I'm just going to puncture your theory right now. If that had happened, and Arthur Cartright went back, he would have gone back with the deliberate intention of killing Clinton Foley, isn't that right?"

"I suppose so, yes."

"All right. If he had done that, he would have gone into the house, seen Clinton Foley, pointed a gun at him and gone bang, bang, right away. He wouldn't have stood around and argued while Foley was wiping the lather from his face. He wouldn't have stood still and let Foley go back and unchain a savage police dog. The only trouble with you guys is that you find a dead man and immediately start looking for some one who would make a good suspect. You don't look at the evidence and try to see where that evidence points."

"Where does it point?" asked Sergeant Holcomb.

"Hell!" said Perry Mason wearily. "I've done damn near all the detective work on this case so far. I'm not going to do all of your work for you. You're the one that's drawing pay for the job; I'm not."

"From all we can understand," said Sergeant Holcomb, "you've drawn pretty good pay to date for everything that you've done in the case."

Perry Mason gave an audible yawn.

"That," he said, "is one of the relative advantages of my profession, Sergeant. It also has corresponding disadvantages."

"Such as?" Sergeant Holcomb asked curiously.

"Such as the fact that one gets paid entirely on one's ability," Mason remarked. "The only reason I collect good money for what I do, is because I've demonstrated my ability to do it. If the taxpayers didn't give you your salary check every month until you'd delivered results, you might have to go hungry a few months, - unless you showed more intelligence than you're showing on this case."

"That'll do," said Sergeant Holcomb in a voice that quivered with indignation. "You can't sit here and insult me like that. You're not going to get anywhere with it, Mason, and you might as well realize it. This isn't a case where you're just an attorney. Dammit! You're a suspect."

"So I gathered," Mason said. "That's the reason I made the remark."

"Look here," Holcomb announced, "either you are lying about going out there at eight-thirty, or else you're being deliberately vague about it so that you can confuse the issue. Now, an examination shows that Foley was killed around seven-thirty to eight o'clock. He'd been dead more than forty minutes when the Homicide Squad got there. All you've got to do is to show where you were between seven-thirty and eight, and you'll be out of it as a suspect. Why the devil don't you cooperate with us?"

"I'm telling you," said Perry Mason, "that I don't know just what I was doing at that time. I didn't even bother to look at my watch. I went out and had dinner, strolled around and smoked a cigarette, went to the office, and then went back down to the street, walked around a little bit, thinking and smoking, picked up a cruising cab and went out to keep my appointment."

"And the appointment was at eight-thirty?"

"The appointment was at eight-thirty."

"But you can't prove it."

"Of course not. Why the devil should I have to prove the time of every appointment I've made? I'm a lawyer. I see people by appointments. I make lots of appointments during the day. As a matter of fact, in place of being a suspicious circumstance, the fact that I can't prove the time of the appointment, is the one thing that shows the appointment was made in ordinary business routine.

"If I could produce a dozen witnesses to show you that I'd made an appointment to talk over something with Clinton Foley, you would immediately commence to wonder why I had gone to all that trouble to show the time of the appointment. That is, you would if you had any brains.

"Now, I'll tell you something else. What the hell was to have prevented me going out to the house at seven-thirty, killing Foley, taking a taxicab back uptown, picking up another taxicab, and coming out to the house at eight-thirty to keep my appointment?"

There was a moment of silence in the room, and then Sergeant Holcomb said, "Nothing, as far as I can see."

"That's just the point," said Perry Mason. "Only, in the event I'd done that, I'd have been pretty much inclined to take the number of the taxicab that took me out there at eight-thirty, and to have had witnesses to the fact that my appointment was at eight-thirty, wouldn't I?"

"I don't know what you'd do," said Sergeant Holcomb irritably. "When you start in on a case you don't do anything logically. You just act goofy all the way through it. Why the devil don't you come through and be frank with us, and go home and go to bed and let us get working on the case?"

"I'm not stopping you from working on the case," Perry Mason said, "and I'm not particularly keen about having these lights blazing into my eyes while you detectives sit around and stare at my face, thinking you can find something in my facial expression that's going to give you a clew. If you'd turn out the lights and sit in the dark and think for a while, it would do you a damn sight more good than sitting around in a circle and looking at my face."

"Well, it's not a face I'm crazy about looking at," Sergeant Holcomb said irritably.

"How about Thelma Benton?" asked Perry Mason. "What was she doing?"

"She's got a complete alibi. She can account for every minute of her time."

"By the way," said Perry Mason, "what were you doing at that time, Sergeant?"

Sergeant Holcomb's voice showed surprise.

"Me?" he asked.

"Sure, you."

"Are you going to try and make me a suspect?" he asked.

"No," said Perry Mason. "I was just asking you what you were doing."

"I was on my way up to the office, here," said Sergeant Holcomb. "I was in an automobile, somewhere between the house and the office."

"How many witnesses can you bring to prove it?" asked Mason.

"Don't be funny," Sergeant Holcomb told him.

"If you'd use your noodle, you'd see that I'm not being funny," Mason remarked. "I'm serious as hell. How many witnesses can you bring to prove it?"

"None, of course. I can show when I was at my house, and I can show the time I arrived at the office."

"That's the point," said Mason.

"What is?" asked Sergeant Holcomb.

"The point that should make you suspicious about this perfect alibi of Thelma Benton's. Whenever a person can show an iron clad alibi covering what they've been doing every minute of the time, it's usually a sign that they've taken a great deal of care to perfect an alibi. A person who does that either participates in the commission of a murder and fakes an alibi, or else knows a murder is going to be committed, and therefore takes great pains to make a perfect alibi."

There was a long moment of silence. Then Sergeant Holcomb said, in a voice that was almost meditative, "So you think Thelma Benton knew Clinton Foley was going to be murdered?"

"I don't know anything at all about what Thelma Benton knew or didn't know," Perry Mason remarked. "I merely told you that a person who has a perfect alibi usually has a reason for it. In the ordinary run of a day's business, a person doesn't have an alibi for every minute of the time. He can't prove where he was, any more than you can prove it. I'll bet there isn't a man in the room who can prove, absolutely, by witnesses, what he was doing every minute between seven-thirty and eight o'clock tonight."

"Well," Holcomb remarked wearily, "it's a cinch you can't."

"Sure," said Mason, "and if you weren't so dumb, that would be the best proof of my innocence, instead of an indication of my guilt."

"And you can't prove that you went to the house at eight-thirty. There's no one who saw you go there; no one knows you had an appointment? No one who let you in? No one who saw you there at all at eight-thirty?"

"Sure," said Perry Mason, "I can prove that."

"How?" asked Sergeant Holcomb.

"By the fact," Perry Mason said, "that I called police headquarters shortly after eight-thirty and told them about the murder. That shows I was there at eight-thirty."

"You know that isn't what I mean," Sergeant Holcomb told him. "I mean can you prove that you just came there at eight-thirty?"

"Certainly not, we've already gone over that."

"I'll say we've gone over it," Sergeant Holcomb said. He scraped back his chair and got to his feet.

"You win, Mason," he said. "I'm going to let you go. You're pretty well established here in town, and we can put our finger on you whenever we want you. I don't mind telling you that I don't really think you did the murder, but I sure as hell think you're shielding some one, and that some one is a client of yours. I'm just going to tell you that in place of shielding your client, your conduct has made me all the more suspicious."

"Suppose you tell me just how," Mason said.

"I believe," said Sergeant Holcomb slowly, "that Arthur Cartright ran away with Foley's wife; that she told him a story of abuse, and that Cartright came back and shot Foley. Then I think that Cartright called you and told you what he'd done, and wanted to surrender himself; that you told him not to make a move until after you got there; that you went out and started Cartright going some place in a hurry, while you waited fifteen or twenty minutes, and then telephoned the police. In fact, there's no reason why you couldn't have been the one to have wiped off the dead man's face, and put the towel with the lather on it under the bathtub, near the dog chain."

"What's that make me? An accessory after the fact, or something of the sort?" asked Perry Mason.

"You're damn right it would," said Sergeant Holcomb, "and if I can ever prove it, I'm going to give you the works."

"I'm glad to hear you say so," said Perry Mason.

"Glad to hear me say what?" rasped Sergeant Holcomb.

"That you're going to give me the works if you can prove it. The way you've been acting, I thought you intended to give me the works whether you could prove any thing or not."

Sergeant Holcomb gestured wearily. "Go ahead," he said, "and get out of here. Hold yourself in readiness so we can get you for further questioning, if we want to."

"All right," Perry Mason said, "if that's the way you feel about it, and if the interview's over, switch out this damned light. I've got a headache from it now."

CHAPTER X

PERRY MASON sat in Paul Drake's office. Paul Drake teetered in a creaky swivel chair, behind a small, battered desk. Against the far wall of the office two men sat, uncomfortably, in stiff-backed chairs.

"What," asked Paul Drake, "was the idea?"

"The idea in what?" Mason wanted to know.

"The idea in having me call the men off."

"I simply had everything that I wanted, and I didn't want the men to be found in the neighborhood."

"What was happening in the neighborhood?" Drake inquired.

"I don't know," Perry Mason said. "I didn't even know anything was going to happen, but I thought it might be a good idea to have the shadows called in."

"Listen," said Drake querulously, "there's a lot about this thing you're not telling me."

"Is that so?" asked Perry Mason, lighting a cigarette. "I thought you were supposed to find out things to tell me; not that I was supposed to find out things to tell you. Are these the two men who were on the job?"

"Yes. The man on the left is Ed Wheeler, and the other one is George Doake."

Perry Mason looked over at them.

"What time did you boys go on?" he asked.

"Six o'clock."

"Both of you were there all the time?"

"Most of the time. One of us would go and telephone every fifteen minutes."

"Where were you fellows? I didn't see you when I came up."

"We saw you all right," said Wheeler with a grin.

"Where were you?" Mason repeated.

"We were quite a distance from the house," Wheeler admitted, "but we were where we could see everything that went on. We had night glasses, and we were out of sight. There's a vacant house half way down the block, and we were in a room in the vacant house."

"Don't ask how they got in," said Paul Drake in his slow drawl. "That's a professional secret."

"All right," Mason said, "we'll each of us keep our professional secrets. What I want you boys to do is to tell me exactly what happened."

Ed Wheeler took out a leather-backed notebook from his coat pocket, thumbed the pages and said, "We went on duty at six o'clock. At about six-fifteen, the housekeeper, Thelma Benton, went out."

"Did she go out the front door or the back door?" asked Mason.

"Out the front door."

"All right, where did she go?"

"There was a man called for her in a Chevrolet car."

"Get the license?" Mason asked.

"Sure. It was 6M9245."

"What kind of a car - coupe, sedan or roadster?"

"A coupe."

"Go ahead. What next?"

"Then things were quiet. Nobody came and nobody left, until seven twenty-five. It was really a little past that - almost seven twenty-six, but I called it seven twenty-five. A Checker taxicab came to the place, and a woman got out."

"Did you get the number of the cab?"

"I didn't get the license number. The cab number was painted on the side of the car, and was easier to get than the license number, so I got that."

"What was it?"

"86-C."

"There's no chance that you're mistaken on that?"

"None. We both of us had night glasses and we both of us checked it.

"That's right," rumbled the other detective. "We're positive about the license numbers and all that stuff."

"All right, go on," said Mason.

"A woman got out and went into the house, and the cab went away."

"And it didn't wait?"

"No, it didn't wait. But it came back after twelve minutes. Evidently, the woman had sent the driver some place, and told him to do something and then come back."

"Go ahead," Mason said. "How about the woman? What did she look like?"

"We can't tell exactly. She was well dressed, and had on a dark fur coat."

"Did she wear gloves?"

"She wore gloves."

"Did you see her face?"

"Not plainly. You see, it was dark by that time. The street light showed the taxicab pretty plainly, and that made a shadow right where the woman got out. Then she walked rapidly up the walk, to the house, and went in."

"Did she ring the bell?"

"Yes, she rang the bell."

"Was she a long time about getting in?"

"No, she went in in just a minute or two."

"Looked as though Foley had been expecting her?"

"I don't know. She went to the house and paused for a minute at the front door, and then went in."

"Wait a minute," said Mason. "You say she rang the doorbell. How do you know?"

"I saw her bending over by the door. I figured that was what she was doing."

"Couldn't she have been opening the lock with a key?"

"Yes, she could have done that," said Wheeler. "Come to think of it, maybe that's what she was doing. I figured at the time she was ringing the bell, because that's what I expected her to do."

"Is there any chance the woman could have been Thelma Benton?"

"I don't think so. When Thelma Benton left she was wearing a different kind of coat. This woman wore a long black fur coat."

"How long was she in there?" asked the lawyer.

"She was in there fifteen minutes - maybe sixteen minutes. I've got the cab marked as driving away right after she went in. Then the cab came back in twelve minutes, and the woman left at seven forty-two."

"Did you hear any commotion? Dogs barking, or anything?"

"No, we didn't. But we wouldn't have heard anything anyway. You see, we were a ways down the block. It was the best place we could find to watch. The chief told us that he wanted us to be absolutely certain we weren't spotted. We probably could have come up a little closer after it got dark, but during the daytime we'd have been spotted in a minute if we hung around the place. So we got in this house that was down the street, and used binoculars to see what was going on."

"Go ahead," said Perry Mason. "What happened next?"

"After the woman drove away, nothing happened, until you showed up. You came in a yellow cab, and the cab number was 362. You got in there at eight twenty-nine, according to my watch, and we don't know what happened after that. We telephoned in to Drake, and Drake told us to get off the job right away and come in to the place here, but as we were driving away, we heard a bunch of sirens, so we wondered if anything had happened."

"All right," Mason told him, "don't wonder. It's not what you're paid to do. You're paid to watch, do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Well, then," Mason said, "here's what I want. I want you to round up that Checker driver, number 86-C, and bring him up to the place here. No, wait a minute, don't bring him up to the place. Get him spotted and telephone me here. I'll go talk with him myself."

"Anything else?"

"Not right away," said Perry Mason. He turned to Paul Drake.

"You're moving heaven and earth to get a line on these people I told you about?"

Drake nodded. "I think I've got something for you, Perry," he said, "but let's get rid of these boys first."

"On your way," Mason told them. "Get down to the Checker office. Find out who's running 86-C, and get him spotted for me, then telephone the office here just as soon as you've got him spotted. Another thing, it might be a good plan for you boys not to listen to any gossip while you're on the job."

"How do you mean?" Drake asked.

"I mean," Mason said, "that I don't want these boys getting mixed into anything, other than being a couple of private dicks, working for day wages. Do you get me?"

"I think I get you," said Drake. "You boys under stand?"

"We understand," Wheeler said.

"Get started then," said Mason.

He watched the two men as they left the office, his face set and stern, as though carved from granite, his steady eyes containing a smoldering light in their somber depths.

When the door had closed he turned to Paul Drake.

"Paul," he said, "there was a telegram sent from Midwick to Clinton Foley. That telegram purported to have been signed by the woman who had posed as Foley's wife, and asked him not to do anything criminally against Cartright. I want to get a photostatic copy of that telegram. Do you suppose you can work it?"

"It's going to be a job," Drake said.

"Never mind how much of a job it is; I want you to get it."

"I'll do what I can, Perry."

"Get started on that now."

Paul Drake reached for a telephone, paused a moment, then said, "I'd better go in another office and put that call through. Stick around, I've got something to tell you."

"I've got lots to tell you," Perry Mason said, "only I'm not going to tell you right now."

Drake stepped through a communicating door to an other office, closed the door behind him, was gone five minutes, returned and nodded to Mason.

"I think I can fix it," he said.

"All right," Mason said. "Now tell me what you've found out..."

The telephone rang. Paul Drake made a gesture for silence, scooped up the receiver, said, "Hello," then listened.

"Got the address?" he asked at length.

He nodded his head, then turned to Mason.

"Make a note of this, will you, Perry? There's paper over there on the desk, and a pencil."

Mason walked to the desk, picked up a piece of paper, and held a pencil over it.

"Shoot," he said.

Paul Drake said in a slow voice, "Breedmont Hotel - B-r-e-e-d-m-o-n-t Hotel. Ninth and Masonic. Room 764, and the name is Mrs. C. M. Dangerfield, is that right?" He paused for a moment, then nodded to Perry Mason.

"That's it, Perry," he said. "That's all."

He slipped the receiver back on its hook.

"Who's that?" asked Perry Mason.

"That," said Paul Drake, "is the name under which Mrs. Bessie Forbes is registered at a hotel here in the city. Do you want to go see her? The room number is 764."

Perry Mason heaved a sigh of relief, folded the paper and thrust it in his pocket.

"Now," he said, "we're commencing to get some place."

"You want to go see her now?" asked Paul Drake.

"We've got to see that taxi driver first," Mason told him. "We'll have to get him up here now. There's no time for me to go to him."

"Why is the taxi driver so important?"

"I want to see that taxi driver, and see him first," Mason said. "Also I want to get a shorthand reporter to take down the conversation. I have an idea I've got to get Della Street back to the office."

Paul Drake grinned at him.

"You don't need to worry about that girl," he said, "she's back at the office. She telephoned in a little while ago to see if I'd heard anything from you, and I told her you'd sent in an S O S to pull the shadows off the Foley house, and that I thought it was something important, so she said she was coming down to the office and stick around awhile."

Perry Mason nodded his head slowly.

"That," he said, "is the kind of cooperation that counts."

The telephone rang again. Drake picked up the receiver, said, "Hello," listened for a moment, then nodded to Perry Mason.

"The boys have located that cab driver, Perry," he said. "They haven't talked with him yet, but they've found out from the main office where he is. He just checked in with a report."

"Tell the boys to go and hire the cab; to take it to my office and bring the driver up with them. Make some excuse to bring him up. Tell him they've got a trunk or a suitcase to bring down - anything to get him up there. And tell 'em to do it right away."

Drake nodded, transmitted Mason's instructions over the telephone, hung up and looked at Mason.

"What's next?" he asked. "Do we go up to your office and wait?"

Perry Mason nodded.

CHAPTER XI

THE cab driver fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair, glanced at Perry Mason, then let his eyes slither away to the faces of the two detectives, then looked at Della Street.

Della Street, perched on the edge of a chair, knees crossed, notebook held open on the desk, smiled reassuringly at him.

"What's the idea?" the driver asked.

"Just want to find out some information from you," said Mason. "We're collecting some evidence in connection with a case."

"What sort of a case?" asked the driver.

Mason nodded to Della Street, and she touched her pen to the notebook, streaming off a series of cabalistic signs from the point of the pen.

"The case," said Perry Mason slowly, "was a case involving a neighborhood fight over a howling dog. It seems to have developed into complications. We don't know yet just how serious those complications are. I want you to understand that the questions I am about to ask you deal only with the neighborhood fight over the howling dog, and the resulting charges which were made back and forth."

The cab driver settled back in the chair.

"Suits me," he said. "My meter's running downstairs."

"That's all right," Mason told him. "You get paid for the meter, and you get five dollars on top of it. How does that satisfy you?"

"It will when I get the five dollars," the driver said.

Mason opened a drawer in the desk, took out a five dollar bill and passed it across to the driver.

The cabbie pocketed the money and grinned.

"Now then," he said, "go ahead and shoot."

"Around seven-fifteen, or perhaps a little earlier, you picked up a passenger who had you take her to 4889 Milpas Drive," said Perry Mason.

"So that's it, eh?" said the cab driver.

"That's it," Mason said.

"What do you want to know about it?"

"What did the woman look like?"

"Gee, chief, that's hard to tell. I remember she had on a black fur, and she had some peculiar kind of perfume. She left a handkerchief in the car, and I smelled it. I was going to turn the handkerchief in to the Lost and Found Department, if she didn't say something about claiming it."

"How tall was she?" asked Perry Mason.

The driver shrugged his shoulders.

"Can't you give us any idea?"

The driver looked around him with a bewildered air. Perry Mason nodded to Della Street. "Stand up, Della," he said.

The girl stood up.

"Tall as this girl?" Mason asked.

"Just about the same build," the driver said, looking Della Street over with appreciative eyes. "She wasn't as pretty as this girl, and she may have been a little heavier."

"You remember the color of her eyes?"

"No, I don't. I thought they were black, but maybe they were brown. She had a peculiar voice. I remember she talked funny. She talked in a high-pitched voice, and talked fast."

"You don't remember very much about her, then?" said Mason.

"Not too much, boss. She was the type of woman that you wouldn't - that is, that I wouldn't. You know how it is. There's lots of Janes gets in a cab and starts getting friendly right away. Well, she wasn't the kind that got friendly. Then there's lots of Janes that get in a cab and are on the make. They usually come through with some kind of a business proposition. This Jane wasn't on the make."

"Notice her hands? Did she have any rings on?"

"She had black gloves," said the cab driver positively. "I remember because she had some trouble fumbling around in her purse."

"All right, you took her there, and then what did you do?"

"I took her there, and she told me to watch her until I saw her get into the house. Then I was to go some place to a public telephone and telephone a number and deliver a message."

"Go ahead," Mason said, "what was the number and what was the message?"

"It was a funny message."

"Did she write it out?"

"No, she just told me and made me repeat it twice, so that I'd get it straight."

"All right, go ahead; what was it?"

The driver took a notebook from his pocket and said: "I wrote down the number. It was Parkcrest 62945, and I was to ask for Arthur, and tell him that he'd better go over to Clint's house right away, because Clint was having a showdown over Paula."

Perry Mason glanced over at Paul Drake. Paul Drake's eyes were suddenly thoughtful, and they stared at Perry Mason with concerned speculation.

"All right," the lawyer said. "Did you deliver the message?"

"No, I didn't. I couldn't get anybody to answer the telephone. I tried three times, and then I came back. I waited a minute or two, and the Jane came out and I took her back."

"Where did you pick her up?"

"I was cruising around at Tenth and Masonic Streets, and I picked her up there. She had me take her back to the same place I picked her up."

"What's your name?" asked Perry Mason.

"Marson - Sam Marson, sir, and I live at the Bellview Rooms. That's on West Nineteenth Street."

"You haven't turned in that handkerchief yet?" asked Perry Mason.

Marson fished in his side coat pocket, took out a dainty square of lace, held it up and sniffed appreciatively.

"That's the perfume," he said.

Perry Mason reached for the handkerchief, smelled of it, then handed it across to Paul Drake. The detective smelled of it and shrugged his shoulders.

"Let Della take a whiff, and see if she can tell us what the perfume is," Perry Mason said.

Drake passed the handkerchief over to Della. She smelled it, then handed it back to Drake, looked at Perry Mason and nodded.

"I can tell," she said.

"Well, what is it?" said Paul Drake.

Perry Mason shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Drake hesitated for a moment, then dropped the handkerchief into the side pocket of his coat.

"We'll take care of the handkerchief," he told the cab driver.

Perry Mason's voice was suddenly edged with impatience.

"Wait a minute, Drake," he said. "I'm running this show. Give the man back his handkerchief. You don't own it."

Drake looked at Perry Mason with puzzled incomprehension upon his face.

"Go on," the lawyer said, "give it back. He's got to keep it for a while and see if she calls for it."

"Shouldn't I turn it in to the Lost and Found Department?" asked the cab driver, reaching for the handkerchief and putting it in his pocket.

"No," said Perry Mason, "not right away. Keep it for a while. I have an idea the same woman will probably show up and demand the handkerchief. When she does, ask her for her name and address, see? Tell her that you've got to make a report to the company, because you said over the telephone you had the handkerchief to surrender, and you'd have to find out the woman's name and address, or something like that. See?"

"Okay, I see," said the cab driver. "Anything else?"

"I think that's all," Mason told him. "We can reach you if we need you."

"You taking down everything I say?" asked the driver, looking over at the notebook in front of Della Street.

"Taking down the questions and answers," Perry Mason assured him casually. "So that I can show my client I've been on the job. It makes a difference, you know."

"Sure," said the cab driver, "we've all got to live. How about the meter?"

"One of the boys will go down with you and pay off the meter," Perry Mason said. "Be sure you take good care of that handkerchief, and be sure you get the name and address of the woman who claims it."

"Sure," said the cab driver, "that's a cinch."

He left the room and, at a nod from Paul Drake, the two detectives went with him.

Perry Mason turned to Della Street.

"What perfume, Della?" he asked.

"It just happens," said Della Street, "that I can tell you the name of that perfume, and I can also tell you that the young woman who wore it isn't a working girl - not unless she worked in pictures. I've got a friend in the perfume department of one of the big stores, and she let me smell a sample, just the other day."

"All right," said Mason; "what is it?"

"It's Vol de Nuit," said Della Street.

Perry Mason got to his feet, started pacing the office, head thrust forward, thumbs hooked in the arm holes of his vest. Abruptly he whirled on Della Street.

"All right," he said, "get this friend of yours, and get a bottle of that perfume. Never mind what it costs. Bust into the store if you have to. Get that just as soon as you can, and then come back to the office and wait until you hear from me."

'You got something in mind, Perry?" asked Paul Drake.

Mason nodded wordlessly.

"I don't want to say anything," said Drake, choosing his words carefully, and speaking with that characteristic drawl which gave the impression of a man to whom all forms of excitement had become a matter of routine, "but it seems to me that you're skating on thin ice. I'd like to know more what the sirens were doing, screaming out toward that Foley residence, before you got mixed into this thing too deep."

Mason studied Drake steadily for several seconds, and then said, "Were you going to tell me how to practice law?"

"I might tell you," said Paul Drake, "how to keep out of jail. I don't know law, but I know thin ice when I see it."

"A lawyer," said Perry Mason slowly, "who wouldn't skate on thin ice for a client ain't worth a damn."

"Suppose you break through?" Drake asked.

"Listen," Mason told him, "I know what I'm doing." He walked to the desk, took his forefinger and drew it along the blotter.

"There's the line of the law," he said. "I'm going to come so damn close to that line that I'm going to rub elbows with it, but I'm not going to go across it. That's why I want witnesses to everything I do."

"What are you going to do?" asked Drake.

"Plenty," said Perry Mason. "Get your hat; we're going to go places."

"Such as?" Drake wanted to know.

"The Breedmont Hotel," said Perry Mason.

CHAPTER XII

THE seventh floor of the Breedmont Hotel was a wide vista of polished doors. The corridor was wide and spacious, well lit with a soft light that came from indirect lighting fixtures. The carpet in the corridor was deep and springy.

"What was the room number?" asked Perry Mason.

"764," Drake told him. "It's around the corner, here."

"Okay," the lawyer said.

"What do you want me to do?" Drake asked.

"Keep everything shut except your eyes and your ears, unless I give you a tip to cut in on the conversation," Mason said.

"I get you," Drake remarked. "Here's your door."

Perry Mason knocked on it.

For several seconds there was no sound from the interior of the room. Mason knocked again, and then there was the rustle of motion, the sound of a bolt clicking, and a high-pitched feminine voice, speaking with nervous rapidity, said, "Who is it?" The door opened a bare crack.

"An attorney who wants to see you on a matter of importance," Perry Mason said in a low voice.

"I don't want to see any one," said the high-pitched voice, and the door started to close.

Perry Mason's foot blocked the door, just before the latch clicked into position.

"Come on, Paul," he said, and put his shoulder to the door.

A woman gave a high, hysterical scream, struggled for a moment, and then the door abruptly yielded.

The two men walked into the hotel bedroom as a partially clad woman staggered off balance, stared at them in white-faced panic, and abruptly snatched a silk kimono from the back of a chair.

"How dare you!" she blazed.

"Close the door, Paul," said Perry Mason.

The woman gathered the robe around her, walked determinedly to the telephone.

"I," she said, "am about to telephone to the police."

"Never mind about that," Perry Mason told her. "The police will be here soon enough."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about," Perry Mason said. "You're about at the end of your rope - Mrs. Bessie Forbes."

At the name, the woman stood stiff and erect, staring at them with eyes that were dark with panic.

"Good God!" she said.

"Exactly," said Perry Mason. "Sit down now, and talk sense. We've got just a few minutes to talk, and I've got to tell you a lot. You've got to listen and cut out all this monkey business."

She dropped into a chair, and her excitement was such that the dressing gown fell open and remained unnoticed, disclosing the gleam of a bare shoulder, the luster of a sheer silk stocking.

Perry Mason stood with his feet planted apart, his shoulders squared, and snapped words at the woman, as though they had been missiles.

"I know all about you," he said. "There's no need to make any denial or go for any heroics or hysterics. You were the wife of Clinton Forbes. He left you in Santa Barbara and ran away with Paula Cartright. You tried to follow them. I don't know what your object was. I'm not asking you that, yet. Cartright located Clinton Forbes before you did. Forbes was living on Milpas Drive, under the name of Clinton Foley. Cartright got the house adjoining him, but didn't make his identity known. He was pretty well broken up. He was watching all the time, trying to find out whether Forbes was making his wife happy.

"I don't know just when you found out about it, or just how you found out about it, but it wasn't very long ago that you got wise to the whole situation.

"Now then, here's the funny thing. I'm a lawyer. You may have read of me. I've tried a few murder cases, and I expect to try some more. I specialize on criminal trial work on the big cases. My name's Perry Mason."

"You!" she said, in a tone of breathless interest. "You? You're Perry Mason?"

He nodded.

"Oh!" she breathed. "Oh, I'm so glad."

"Forget all that," he said, "and remember we've got an audience. I'm going to tell you a lot of stuff while I've got a witness here. You're going to listen and do nothing else. Do you get me?"

"Yes," she said, "I guess I understand what you want, all right, but I'm so glad to see you. I wanted..."

"Shut up," he told her, "and listen."

She nodded.

"Cartright," said Perry Mason, "came to my office. He acted strangely. He wanted to make a will. We won't talk about the terms of that will - not yet. But with the will came a letter and a retainer. The letter instructed me to protect the interests of the wife of the man who was living at 4889 Milpas Drive, under the name of Clinton Foley. Now get that, and get it straight. He didn't tell me to protect the woman who was going under the name of Mrs. Foley at 4889 Milpas Drive, but he told me to protect the lawfully wedded wife of the man who was going under the name of Clinton Foley, at that place."

"But did he understand just what he was doing? He wouldn't -"

"Shut up," Mason said. "Time's precious. I've got a witness to listen to what I say to you. I know what that's going to be. But I may not want a witness to what you say to me, because I don't know what you're going to say. Understand? I'm a lawyer, trying to protect you.

"Now Arthur Cartright mailed me a substantial retainer, with instructions to protect you and see that your legal rights were safeguarded. I've got the fee, and I propose to earn it. If you don't want my services, all you've got to do is to say so, and I walk out right now."

"No, no," she said, in a shrill, high-pitched voice. "I want your services. I need them. I want..."

"All right," Perry Mason said. "Now, then, can you do what I tell you to?"

"If it isn't too complicated," she said.

"It's going to be hard," he said, "but it isn't going to be complicated."

"Very well," she said. "What is it?"

"If anybody," he told her, "questions you about where you were at any time tonight, or what you were doing, tell them that you can't answer any questions unless your attorney is present, and that I'm your lawyer. Now, can you remember that?"

"Yes. That won't be hard to do, will it?"

"It may be," he told her, "and if they ask you how I became your lawyer, or when you hired me, or anything of that sort, simply make the same answer. And make the same answer to all questions. If they ask you what the weather is. If they ask you how old you are. If they ask you what kind of face cream you use, or anything else, make the same answer. Do you understand that?"

She nodded.

Perry Mason abruptly walked to the fireplace.

"What's been burning here?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said.

Perry Mason leaned over the fireplace and stirred the ashes in the grate.

"Smells like some kind of cloth," he said.

The woman said nothing, but stared at him in white-faced silence.

Perry Mason picked up a small piece of cloth. It was silk, green, and printed with a brown triangle.

"Looks like part of a scarf," he said.

She took a swift step toward him.

"I didn't know..."

"Shut up!" he said, whirling on her.

He took the singed bit of cloth, put it in his vest pocket, then pulled the grate out of the fireplace, and started poking through the ashes. After a moment, he straightened, walked to the dressing table, picked up a bottle of perfume, smelled it, walked swiftly to the wash stand, pulled the cork, and dumped the perfume down the wash stand.

The woman gasped, moved toward him, and put a restraining hand on his arm.

"Stop!" she said. "That stuff costs..."

He whirled on her with eyes that were blazing.

"It's likely to cost a hell of a lot," he said. "Now listen to this and get it straight: Check out of this hotel. Go to the Broadway Hotel on Forty-second Street. Register under the name of Bessie Forbes. Be careful what you take with you, and be careful what you leave behind. Buy yourself some good cheap perfume, and when I say cheap, I mean cheap. Souse it all over everything you've got. Do you get me?"

She nodded.

"Then what?" she asked.

"Then," he said, "sit tight and don't answer any questions. No matter who asks you a question or what it's about, say you won't do anything until your lawyer is present."

He turned on the hot water tap, washed out the perfume bottle, kept the hot water running.

The room gave forth a fragrance of perfume, and Perry Mason turned to Paul Drake.

"Better smoke, Paul," he said. "A cigar if you've got one."

Paul Drake nodded, pulled a cigar from his pocket, clipped off the end and struck a match to it. Perry Mason walked across to the windows, raised the windows, and nodded to the woman.

"Get some clothes on," he said. "My telephone number is Broadway 39251. Make a note of it. Call me if anything happens. Remember that my services aren't going to cost you a cent. They're all paid for. Remember that you're going to answer all questions asked of you, no matter what they may be, with just that one answer, that you can't talk unless your lawyer tells you to.

"Have you got that straight?"

She nodded.

"Have you got guts enough," he asked, "to stand on your two feet, look the world squarely in the eyes, and tell them you won't answer a single question unless your lawyer is there?"

She lowered her eyes and looked thoughtful.

"Suppose," she said, "that they tell me that would work against me? That is, isn't it supposed to be an admission of guilt for a person to make a statement like that? Not that I'm guilty of anything, but you seem to think that..."

"Please," he said, "don't argue with me. Have enough confidence in me to do as I tell you. Will you do that?"

She nodded.

"All right," he told her. "That's all, Drake. Come on." He turned, pulled open the door of the room, paused on the threshold to give her a parting instruction.

"When you check out of here," he said, "don't leave a back trail. Go to the depot and buy a ticket some place. Then switch redcap porters, pick up another taxicab and go to the place I told you and register under the name I told you. You got that straight?"

She nodded.

"All right," said Mason. "Come on, Paul."

The door banged behind them.

In the corridor Paul Drake looked at Perry Mason.

"You," he said, "may think that you're keeping on one side of the line, but it looks to me as though you've gone over.

"Think I've broken through the thin ice, Paul?" asked Perry Mason.

"Hell," said Paul Drake explosively, "you're in ice water up to your chin right now, and it's getting deeper."

"Stick around," Perry Mason told him, "you haven't seen anything yet. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to get me an actress, about twenty-eight years old, about the same build as that woman, and have her at my office just as quick as you can get her there. She's going to make three hundred dollars for doing something, and I'm going to guarantee that it's going to be within the law. I don't want you to be there personally, and don't want you to know anything about it. I simply want you to get the actress and send her to me. I want you to get a girl who will do anything. You understand? Anything."