The Case of the Sulky Girl

Chapter 12

Paul Drake, the detective, bore no resemblance whatever to the popular conception of a private detective, which was, perhaps, why he was so successful.

He was a tall man, with a long neck that was thrust forward inquiringly. His eyes were protruding, and glassy, and held a perpetual expression of droll humor. Nothing ever fazed him. In his life, murders were everyday occurrences; love nests as common as automobiles, and hysterical clients merely part of an everyday routine.

He sat in the big highbacked leather chair in Perry Mason's office, and turned sideways, so that his long legs were crossed over the right hand arm of the chair. A cigarette was in his mouth, hanging pendulously at an angle from his lower lip.

Perry Mason, seated back of the big desk, stared at the detective with patient eyes that were calmly watchful. His manner was that of a veteran fighter relaxed in his corner, waiting for the sounding of the gong. He looked like a man who would presently lose his relaxed watchfulness, spring from the chair, and engage in swift conflict, with the ferocity of a tiger.

"Well," said Drake, "what's eating you?"

"Awhile back," said Perry Mason, "you were telling me something about a rough shadow."

Paul Drake inhaled placidly on his cigarette. His glassy, protruding eyes watched Perry Mason with an expression of quizzical humor.

"You must have a good memory," he said. "That was a long time ago."

"Never mind when it was," Mason told him. "I want to get the lowdown on it."

"Somebody trying it on you?" asked the detective.

"No," said Mason. "But I have an idea I can use it! Give me the sketch."

Paul Drake removed the cigarette from his mouth, pinched it out, and dropped it into an ashtray.

"It's a stunt in detective work," he said. "We don't ordinarily talk about it—not to outsiders, anyway. It's a psychological third degree. It's predicated on the idea that a man who has something on his mind that he's trying to conceal, is likely to be nervous."

"How does it work?" Mason asked tonelessly.

"Well, let's figure that you're working on a case, and you figure somebody has got some knowledge—not just ordinary knowledge, but a sort of guilty knowledge that he's trying to conceal. You've got two or three ways of approaching him in order to get him to spill the beans. One of them is to use the routine stunt of getting an attractive woman to get acquainted with him, and start him boasting. Another one is to plant some man who becomes friendly with him, and gets his confidence.

"Usually one of those ways works out. But sometimes they don't work. Sometimes a man won't fall for a woman, or, if he does, won't start boasting, and he'll get suspicious if one of your operatives starts getting friendly with him. That's when we use the rough shadow. It takes two men to work a rough shadow job. First, you have your contact man who makes a contact with the suspect, but can't seem to get under his hide, can't get him to talk.

"Well, you pick the time and a suitable place, and have your rough shadow trailing along behind. The contract man starts the fireworks by giving a signal.

"Of course, you understand, shadowing is a job in itself. The public gets goofy ideas about the work of a shadow, and how he operates. The public gets the idea that a shadow puts on disguises and ducks into doorways or hides behind telephone poles, and all that sort of stuff. They get that way from looking at the movies and reading a lot of detective stories written by guys that don't know anything about the detective business.

"As a matter of fact, your real shadow is a smooth guy who almost never uses a disguise. He's just a casual, innocentlooking bystander. No matter what happens, he never gets rattled and never does any of this business of ducking in a doorway. He looks so matteroffact that the suspect always takes him as part of the general scenery, and never thinks of him as an individual."

"I know all that, in a general way," Perry Mason told him. "What I want to get straight is just how this rough shadow game is worked."

"Well, that's simple," said the detective. "It's like all of the good things—they're simple when you come right down to analyze them. The rough shadow simply acts the way the suspect figures a shadow should act. In other words, he quits being a regular shadow, and becomes crude. He does all the things that the suspect naturally expects a detective would do. He hides behind telephone poles and ducks in doorways, and all of that stuff."

"So that the suspect knows he's being shadowed?" asked Perry Mason.

"That's the idea," said Drake, taking another cigarette from a case in his pocket, and tapping it gently on his thumb nail.

"You see, the contact man has established a certain amount of friendly relations with the suspect. The suspect, however, is a guy who won't talk about the thing that the contact man wants him to talk about, so the contact man gets a shadow to tail along behind. The suspect never knows that he's being tailed, because the shadow is a smooth worker. But, when the circumstances are right, the contact man gives a signal, and then the shadow gets crude about his methods. He starts ducking around behind telephone poles, putting on disguises, and doing the hundred and one amateurish things which defeat the very purpose of a skilled shadow. Naturally, the suspect takes a tumble that he's being tailed.

"Now, it's a funny thing about a man finding out that he's being shadowed, particularly a man who ain't used to it. As soon as he finds that somebody's tailing him around, he starts getting nervous. Usually the first thing he does is to start walking faster, and looking back over his shoulder. Naturally, the contact man has the rough shadow game sprung when he's walking with the suspect, and the contact man always slows down and saunters along.

"So the suspect wants to hurry things up a little bit, and he's nervous and jumpy all over. After a while, ninetynine chances out of a hundred, he'll turn to the contact man and say that there's a detective following him and he wants to ditch the shadow. The contact man helps him to do it, and that makes the suspect loosen up and take the contact man into his confidence."

"Suppose the suspect doesn't say anything to the contact man?" asked the lawyer.

"Then," said Drake, "the contact man says something to the suspect. He taps him on the shoulder, and says: 'Listen, old man, I don't want to get personal, but do you know there's somebody shadowing you? Or else, he may say: 'Say, look at that fellow behind us. I believe he's shadowing me. If it's a crime he's working on, the contact man usually pretends that the rough shadow is tailing him, and opens up and confesses to the suspect that he's been guilty of a crime somewhere, and that he's afraid the dicks are on his trail. He asks the suspect to help him ditch the rough shadow. They rush into buildings, go up and down elevators, mingle with crowds, and all that sort of stuff, and when the contact man gives a signal, the rough shadow steps out of the picture, and the suspect thinks he's been ditched.

"It's just an angle of the game that sometimes brings results. You can nearly always get a man talking when you pull a rough shadow on him."

"All right," said Perry Mason, "I want to work a rough shadow game."

"Maybe you won't need a rough shadow," Drake pointed out. "It's something we use only as a last resort. Usually we can build up a friendship and get people to talk. A slick operative has a knack of making people spill facts."

"No," said Mason, "this is an unusual case, and I want a contact operative who is of a certain type."

"What's the type?" asked the detective.

"A middleaged woman who can pretend she has had to work hard all her life. Get somebody who hasn't any particular beauty or figure; who has wrinkled hands and a heavy figure."

"Okay," said Drake. "I've got just the woman. She's clever, and she's hardboiled. Who do you want to have her contact?"

"Mrs. Edna Mayfield, the housekeeper for Edward Norton."

"The man who was murdered?"

"The man who was murdered."

Drake whistled.

"Think she's mixed up in the murder?" he asked.

"I don't know just what she's mixed up in," Perry Mason said slowly, "but she's got information. I want that information."

"They've got the fellow that did the murder, haven't they?" asked the detective, his glassy eyes suddenly losing their expression of droll humor, and containing a glint of quick appraisal. "Wasn't it the chauffeur or somebody that pulled the job?"

"So I understand," said Mason noncommittally.

"You're representing Frances Celane, the young woman who's the beneficiary under the trust fund and the will?"

"Yes."

"Okay, now just what do you want me to get out of her?"

"Anything that she knows," said Perry Mason slowly.

"You mean about the murder?"

"About anything."

Paul Drake let his glassy eyes study the tip of the cigarette and the smoke which eddied upward from it.

"Look here," he said, "let's be frank with each other. I know you well enough to know that if you're getting me to start work on this murder case, that there's an angle to it that the police haven't got."

"I didn't say I wanted you to work on the murder case," Perry Mason said slowly.

"No," said Drake significantly, "you didn't say that."

There was a moment or two of silence, then Perry Mason said, slowly and impressively: "I want you to find out everything that that housekeeper knows. I don't care what it's about."

Paul Drake made a gesture with his shoulders.

"Don't get me wrong," he said. "I'm not curious, and I don't want you to misunderstand me. But just suppose that some of the information this woman spills wouldn't look so well for your client?"

"I want to get the information," said Perry Mason.

"Sure, I know," said Drake. "But suppose that we get it through a couple of operatives that I'll put on the case. And suppose the information should be something you would want to keep under cover? I try to get dependable people to work for me, but things have a habit of leaking out in time."

"Yes," said Perry Mason slowly, "in time."

Once more there was an interval of silence.

"Well?" asked the detective.

"I think," said Mason, "that this is another case where I'm going to be working against time. I don't think there's any information that your operatives will get that the police won't get sooner or later. I want to have it sooner, and want the police to get it later."

Drake nodded.

"All right," he said, "I get the sketch. I just wanted to be certain there wasn't any misunderstanding between us. Misunderstandings in my business make for dissatisfied clients, and I want to keep my clients satisfied."

"All right," Mason told him. "We understand each other on that.

"Now, there's one other thing. A fellow by the name of Don Graves, secretary to Edward Norton, was a witness to the murder itself. He's told the police one story, and me another. He may be dangerous. I want to find out confidentially whether he really did see a woman in the room at the time the murder blow was struck, or whether he's going to say he did, which amounts to the same thing.

"Now, do you suppose that you could get someone to contact him without creating too much suspicion, and find out just what he's really going to testify to? If there's any way of doing it, I'd like to get a written statement out of him."

"Any money for expenses?" asked the detective.

"Plenty of it," said the lawyer.

"Well, suppose I get somebody to go to him and tell him he's representing a tabloid newspaper, or a true detective story magazine, and wants the account of an eyewitness, get him to submit the manuscript signed and sworn to, and offer to pay him by the word?"

"Okay," said Mason, "provided there aren't too many words."

The detective grinned.

"You mean, provided the words are of the right kind."

"Well," said the lawyer, "I guess that amounts to about the same thing."

Drake got up and flipped his cigarette into a brass cuspidor.

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

"You'll let me know progress?"

"I'll let you know progress."

"Concentrate heavy on that housekeeper. She's a tartar and you'll have to watch her."

"Mail reports?" asked the detective.

"No. Make them orally or not at all."

There was a knock at the door, and Della Street glanced significantly at Perry Mason.

"That's okay," he said, "tell me what it is, Della."

"Mr. Crinston is out here. He says his business is important and he can't wait."

"Very well," said Mason, "I'll see him."

He flashed a meaning glance to Drake and said to the detective in a tone of voice sufficiently loud to carry into the outer office, "That's quite all right, Mr. Drake. I'm busy on an important matter right now, and I can't give it my immediate attention, but you've got ten days within which to make an appearance, and I'll draw up a demurrer and file it in court. That'll carry the thing along and keep you from being in default until we can go into greater details."

He shook hands with Drake in the doorway, and beckoned to Mr. Crinston.

"Come in," he said.

Crinston pushed his way into the inner office with that aggressive suggestion of booming authority which characterized him. He gave the impression of sweeping away all obstacles from his path by the very blast of his forceful personality.

"Hello, Mason," he said, shaking hands. "Glad to see you. Guess you've been pretty busy, haven't you?"

Mason watched him with speculative eyes.

"Yes," he said. "I've been busy."

Crinston sat down in the big chair, and filled it completely. He took a cigar from his pocket, clipped off the end, scraped a match on the sole of his shoe.

"Well," he said, "it's been a mess all around."

"Yes," the lawyer told him, "it's still a mess."

"Oh, I think it's going to come out all right," said Crinston, "but why didn't you follow my instructions?"

"What instructions?"

"About keeping Frances out of it."

"I have kept her out of it the best I could. The poor girl is hysterical. She came to the office and had a complete breakdown. I called a physician, and he prescribed complete rest. He's taken her to a sanitarium somewhere, and won't tell even me where it is, for fear that I might call her."

Crinston puffed out the first whiffs of blue smoke from the cigar, and stared at the lawyer thoughtfully.

"Not bad, that," he said.

"Her nerves were really on the ragged edge," said Mason with dignity.

"Yes, yes, I know," Crinston said impatiently. "No need to waste your time and my time with that stuff. I understand. What I dropped in to find out was whether you know a man by the name of George Blackman, a attorney here?"

"Yes, I know him," said Mason.

"He got in touch with me on the telephone and told me I should see you right away on a matter of great importance."

Mason kept his voice flat and expressionless in an even monotone.

"Blackman came to see me earlier in the day," he said, "and suggested that it might make matters better for the family all around if Devoe should plead guilty to manslaughter."

"Why, damn it!" stormed Crinston. "He's a murderer! That was a dastardly coldblooded murder!"

"That attitude on the part of the family was the thing that Blackman wanted to speak to me about," said Mason, still speaking in the same even cautious monotone. "He said that if the family were going to adopt a vindictive attitude toward his client, it would be necessary for him to adopt a vindictive attitude toward the family and try to show that the case was a frameup against his client."

"How could he do that?" asked Crinston.

"Oh, there are various ways," said Mason, in his steady monotone. "It's an axiom of criminal law that a man should try everyone except the defendant. You know, sometimes you can try the prosecuting attorney. Very frequently you can try the prosecuting witness. You can start digging around, crossexamining on extraneous matters, trying to show some sort of a motive for murder. Then, if you can get a motive before the jury, you start showing opportunity, and if you can get motive and opportunity, you suddenly switch the accusation and claim there's just as much ground to suspect the prosecuting witness as there is the defendant."

"You mean to switch the guilt to Fran Celane?" asked Crinston.

"I didn't mention any names," said Mason. "I simply told you how criminal lawyers play the game."

"Look here," said Crinston. "Did you find out exactly what he wanted?"

"He said that he wanted a fee," said Mason, "and the assurance that a request would go to the District Attorney to look at the matter as leniently as possible and accept a plea of manslaughter."

Crinston studied the lawyer thoughtfully.

"You say that's what he said he wanted?" he commented.

"Yes."

"You act as though you didn't think it was what he really wanted."

"I don't."

"Why?"

"Because I don't think the District Attorney would consider a plea of manslaughter. I think he'd prosecute either for first degree murder, or not at all."

"Then what did Blackman want?" Crinston demanded.

"I think he wanted to find out what our reactions would be to a proposition of that kind. If we'd been willing to go ahead, he'd have taken as much money as he could get, and then blackmailed us for as much more as possible, and then doublecrossed us at the time of trial."

Crinston studied his cigar thoughtfully.

"He didn't impress me as being that kind of a man," he said slowly. "Not from the impression he made over the telephone, anyway."

"If you'd seen him, he'd have made a better impression," Mason told him.

Crinston put the cigar back in his mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully.

"Look here," he said suddenly, placing his parted fingers to his mouth, and jerking out the chewed cigar, "I don't like the way you're handling this case."

"No?" asked Perry Mason coldly.

"No!" said Crinston explosively.

"And what don't you like about it?" asked the lawyer.

"I think you're letting a golden opportunity slip through your fingers. I think there's a good chance to get this thing all cleaned up by playing ball with Blackman."

Mason's answer was curt and without explanation.

"I don't," he said.

"Well I do, and I'm giving you orders right now to get in touch with Blackman and give him what he wants. Anything within reason."

"He doesn't want things within reason," Mason said. "His type never does. He'd find out what we consider reasonable, and then raise his sights."

"All right. Let him raise them. There's a hell of a lot of money involved in this thing, and we can't afford to bungle it."

"Are you afraid," asked Perry Mason, "that Frances Celane can't stand too much pressure?"

"That's a great question to ask me!" Crinston almost shouted. "When you've had to let her have a nervous breakdown in order to keep her out of the hands of the police."

"I didn't say that I did it to keep her from the police," Mason reminded him.

"Well, I said it," said Crinston.

"Yes," Mason told him, "I heard you, and furthermore, you don't need to shout."

Crinston got to his feet, flung the half smoked cigar into the cuspidor, and glowered at Mason.

"All right," he said, "you're finished."

"What do you mean I'm finished?"

"Just what I say. You're not representing me anymore, and you're not going to represent Frances Celane anymore."

"I think," Mason told him slowly, "that Miss Celane will be the best judge of that. I'll wait until she tells me that I'm not to represent her anymore."

"She'll tell you fast enough, as soon as I get in touch with her."

"Where," asked Mason, smiling thoughtfully, "are you going to get in touch with her?"

"Don't worry," Crinston told him, "I'll get in touch with her all right, and then you're going to be finished. You're a bungler. You've been smart enough on some things, but you've let the case get into a hell of a mess. I'm going to get some attorney, and…"

Abruptly, Perry Mason got to his feet. He strode purposefully around the desk. Crinston watched him come with eyes that remained steady, but seemed to hold just a trace of panic. Mason planted himself firmly in front of the other man, his eyes cold, hard, and ominous.

"All right," he said, "let's not have any misunderstanding about this. From now on I'm not representing you, is that right?"

"You bet that's right!"

"And don't think," said Mason, "that your business is so damned important. Miss Celane would have let me handle the estate if it hadn't been for the fact that I couldn't place myself in the position of acting as attorney both for the estate, and for the surviving partner."

"Well," Crinston told him, "you don't need to worry about that anymore. On the other hand, don't think you're going to represent the estate. You aren't going to represent anything or anybody. I'm going to get another attorney to represent me, and he's going to represent Frances Celane, as well."

Perry Mason said, slowly, ominously: "Just to show you what a fool you are, and how you've walked into a trap, the man that you're going to get to represent you is one that was suggested to you by Blackman."

"What if he is?" Crinston demanded.

Mason's smile was frosty.

"Nothing," he said. "Go right ahead. Walk into the trap just as deeply as you want to."

Crinston's eyes softened somewhat.

"Look here, Mason," he said, "I've got nothing against you personally, but this is a business matter. I think you're bungling things, and I think you're too damned ethical. I don't want you to misunderstand me. Frances Celane means a lot to me. I'm just like an uncle to her. She's a kid that I've taken a lot of interest in, and I'm going to see that she gets a square deal. I think that this case requires someone who can deal with Blackman. He says he wouldn't deal with you anymore if you were the last man left on earth."

Perry Mason laughed a bitter, mirthless laugh.

Crinston went on doggedly. "No matter what happens, I'm for Frances Celane. I don't know what the evidence may disclose before it gets done, but I'm going to stick by the kid no matter what happens. Get that, and get it straight. I'm a business man; and she doesn't know a thing about business. I'm going to see that she gets a square deal, beginning immediately."

He turned and walked with ponderous dignity toward the door.

Perry Mason watched him with thoughtful concentration.

"What a sucker you are," as Crinston jerked the door open.

Crinston whirled on him. "I hate that word!" he said. "I don't let anybody call me a sucker."

"You'll hate it a lot worse before you're done," said Mason, and, turning on his heel, walked back to his desk.

Crinston hesitated a moment, then turned and walked back into the room.

"All right, wise guy," he said, "now I'm going to tell you something.

"You've bungled this case from the time you started in on it. I know that I can't fire you as Miss Celane's lawyer. That's something that's entirely up to her. I'm going to advise her to let you go. In the event she doesn't, however, I'm going to give you one tip, and that's watch Purkett, the butler."

"Now," said Perry Mason, "you interest me. Go ahead and tell me what you're driving at."

"Oh," said Crinston sarcastically, "you do want to take a little advice, eh?"

"I want you to tell me why you made that remark about Purkett," said Perry Mason, his eyes cold.

Crinston's eyes surveyed the lawyer in thoughtful appraisal.

"If I told you," he asked, "would you have sense enough to use the information?"

Perry Mason said nothing, but held his head slightly on one side, after the manner of a person anxious to hear that which is about to be said.

"The evidence in this case," said Crinston, "pointed unmistakably to Devoe. A good lawyer would have seen that the police never had a chance to consider the possibility that such evidence wasn't conclusive. However, you sat back and did nothing while the police began to doubt that evidence and make other investigations.

"Then, when that investigation was under way, you did nothing to keep them from involving your client. Now, if Devoe is guilty, that's the end of it. If he isn't guilty, someone else is. There's a stronger probability that that someone else is Purkett than anyone else. Yet you're letting him keep entirely in the background."

Crinston stopped speaking and stood in an attitude of glowering belligerency.

"Is that all you have to say?" asked Perry Mason.

"That's all."

Perry Mason smiled.

"Blackman's address," he said, "is in the Mutual Building. I thought I would save you looking it up in the telephone book."

Crinston's face showed a slight flicker of surprise, then set in grim lines.

"Very well," he said, jerked the office door open, and slammed it behind him.

Perry Mason sat for a few minutes, then clamped his hat down firmly on his head. He walked through the outer office, saying to his secretary as he went past, "I don't know just when I'll be back, Della. Close up the office at five o'clock."