The Case of the Sulky Girl

Chapter 4

Fran Celane drove the big Packard roadster with a deft touch on the wheel, and skilled foot on the throttle.

When she had sat in the huge leather chair at the lawyer's office, she had seemed small, frail and helpless. Now that suggestion of helplessness had gone from her. The hint of the feline power in her nature was more pronounced. Her handling of the car was swiftly savage as she sent it hurtling through openings in traffic, coming to abrupt stops when the traffic lights were against her, leaping into almost instant speed as she got clear signals. Her face still held a pouting, sulky expression.

Seated at her side, Perry Mason studied her with eyes that were intent in watchful speculation.

The girl topped a hill, turned to a winding driveway in a scenic subdivision, and nodded her head in a gesture of indication.

"There's the place," she said, "down at the foot of the hill."

Mason looked down the winding road to the big house which showed as a blaze of light.

"Regular mansion," he said.

"Yes," she answered curtly.

"Many servants?" he asked.

"Quite a few; gardener, housekeeper, butler, chauffeur, and secretary."

"Would you call the secretary a servant?" asked Mason, watching her profile with mild amusement.

"I would," she snapped.

"Evidently you don't like him," Mason remarked.

She paid no attention to the comment, but swung the car around a curve at sufficient speed to bring a scream of protest from the tires.

"Incidentally," went on Perry Mason, "if you're feeling particularly savage about something, and want to take it out on the car, I'd prefer you let me get out. I have to move around in order to make my living. I couldn't gesture very emphatically to a jury with an arm in a sling."

She said: "That's all right. You might have both legs gone," and screamed the car into the next turn with an increased speed.

Mason reached over and shut off the ignition.

"We won't have any more of that," he said.

She slammed a foot on the brake, turned to him with eyes that were blazing with wrath.

"Don't you dare to touch this car when I'm driving it!" she stormed. "Do you hear me, don't you dare!"

Perry Mason's tone was almost casual.

"Don't try to show off to me," he said, "by risking both of our lives. It isn't at all necessary."

"I'm not showing off to you," she blazed. "I don't give a damn what you think. I don't want to be late for our appointment. If we're as much as five minutes late, we're all through. He won't see us at all."

"I can do you a great deal more good," said Mason, "if I get there in one piece."

She had braked the car from high speed to a dead stop. Now she took her hands from the wheel as she turned to the lawyer with blazing eyes.

"I'm driving this car," she said, "and I don't want you to interfere with me!"

Suddenly she smiled. "Forgive me," she said impulsively, "I was wrong and I'm acting like a spoiled child. I guess I was in a hurry, that's all."

Mason remarked complacently: "That's all right, but you have got a temper, haven't you?"

"Of course I have," she said. "I thought you knew that."

"I didn't," he said, "until Crinston told me."

"Did he tell you?"

"Yes."

"He shouldn't have."

"And my secretary," he went on, calmly, "told me you were sulky. I thought at first she might have been right. But she wasn't. You're not sulky, you're just in a panic, that's all. You look sulky when you're frightened."

She whirled to face him with half parted lips and startled eyes. Then, wordlessly, she turned back to the road and started the car. Her lips were pressed into a thin line of determined silence.

Neither of them said anything more until she swept the car up the driveway and braked it to a swift stop.

"Well," she said, "let's go get it over with."

Mason got out.

"You don't intend to be present at the interview?" he asked.

She whipped the car door open and jumped to the driveway with a flash of legs, a flounce of skirt.

"Just long enough to introduce you," she said. "Come on. Let's go."

He followed her to the front door, which she opened with a latchkey.

"Right up the stairs," she said.

They walked up the stairs and turned to the left. A man was just coming out of a doorway, and he paused to stare at them. He held a stiffbacked stenographic notebook in his hand, and some papers under his arm.

"Mr. Graves," said Frances Celane, "my uncle's secretary. Don, this is Mr. Perry Mason, the lawyer."

Mason bowed and noticed as he did so, that Don Graves stared at him with a curiosity which he made no attempt to conceal.

The secretary was slender, well dressed, yellow haired and brown eyed. There was about him a certain alertness, as though he were just about to break into conversation, or just about to start running. Both his physical pose and his manner indicated physical and mental tension.

The secretary said, with a rapidity of utterance which made the words seem to tread each on the heel of the other:

"I'm very pleased to meet you. Mr. Norton is expecting you. If you'll go in, he'll receive you."

Perry Mason said nothing. His bow sufficed for an acknowledgment of the introduction.

The girl pushed on past the secretary. The lawyer followed her. Fran Celane led the way across an outer office which contained a stenographer's desk, a safe, a battery of filing cases, two telephone instruments, typewriters, an adding machine, a file of card indexes.

She pushed open the door of an inner office without knocking and Perry Mason found himself facing a tall man of fiftyfive, who stared at them with a bland, expressionless countenance.

"You are late," he said.

"Not over a minute, Uncle Edward," said the girl.

"A minute," he said, "is sixty seconds."

She made no answer, but turned to the lawyer.

"This is my attorney, Perry Mason, Uncle Edward," she said.

The man said in those precise, expressionless tones: "I am very glad that you have consulted counsel. I think now it will be easier for me to explain certain things to you. You never would accept my word for them. Mr. Mason, I am very glad to meet you and very glad that you have called upon me."

He extended his hand.

Perry Mason nodded his head, shook hands, and sat down.

"Well," Fran Celane said, "I'll be running along and leave my future in your hands."

She smiled at them and left the room. As she closed the door of the private office, Mason heard her voice rattling in swift conversation with Don Graves, the secretary.

Edward Norton did not waste a single second in idle talk.

"Undoubtedly you have looked up the terms of the decree of distribution and the trust," he said.

"I have," Mason told him.

"You are familiar with them?"

"I am."

"Then, you understand, a great deal is left to my discretion."

"I would say a very great deal," said Mason cautiously.

"And I take it my niece has asked you to secure some specific modification of the provisions of the trust?"

"Not necessarily," said Mason, choosing his words cautiously. "She would like, I think to have a certain amount of latitude, and would like to know your possible reactions in the event she should do certain things."

"In the event she should marry, eh?" said Norton.

"Well, we might consider that as one of the possibilities," Mason admitted.

"Yes," said Norton dryly, "we do so consider it. Her father considered it, and I consider it. You probably don't realize it yet, Mr. Mason, but my niece has one of the most ungovernable tempers in the world. She is a veritable tigress when she is aroused. She is also impulsive, headstrong, selfish, and yet thoroughly lovable.

"Her father realized that she had to be protected from herself. He also realized that leaving her any large sum of money might turn out to be the worst thing he could do for her. He knew that I shared his views, and that was the reason this trust was created.

"I want you to understand that in the event I exercise the discretion given to me under that trust, and disburse the money elsewhere than to my niece, I shall do it only because I consider it would be very much to her disadvantage to give her the money. Great riches, with a temperament such as hers, frequently lead to great suffering."

"Don't you think," said Mason diplomatically, "that it would be much better, however, all around, to accustom her to the handling of larger sums of money by gradually increasing the amount which she receives? And don't you think, perhaps, that marriage might exert a steadying influence?"

"I am familiar with all those arguments," said Norton. "I have heard them until I am tired of them. You will pardon me. I mean nothing personal. I say simply what I have in mind.

"I am the trustee of this estate. I have administered it wisely. In fact, despite the economic readjustment of values which has taken place in the last few years, I am glad to report that the trust funds have shown a steady increase, until now the amount of the trust is far in excess of what it was at the time it was created. Recently I have entirely cut off my niece's allowance. She is not receiving a penny."

Mason's face showed surprise.

"I see," said Norton, "that she has not confided to you the exact situation."

"I didn't know that you had cut off her income entirely," said Mason. "May I ask what is the reason for such a step?"

"Certainly," said Norton, "I have every reason to believe that my niece is being blackmailed. I have asked her about it, and she refuses to tell me who is blackmailing her, or what specific indiscretion she has committed which gives a blackmailer an opportunity to collect money from her.

"Therefore I have determined to place it out of her power to make any cash donations to any blackmailer. Under those circumstances, I am satisfied that another few days will force the situation to a head."

Norton stared at Mason with cold eyes which contained no trace of cordiality, yet no trace of hostility.

"You understand my position in the matter?" asked Mason.

"Certainly," said Norton. "I'm glad that my niece has consulted an attorney. I don't know if she has made arrangements for your compensation. In the event she has not, I propose to see that a sufficient amount is forthcoming from the trust fund to furnish you a reasonable fee. But I want you to impress upon her mind that she is legally powerless to do anything."

"No," said Perry Mason, "I'll take my fee from her and I'm not binding myself to give any particular advice. Let's talk about the way you're going to use your discretion, instead of whether you've got the right to use it."

"No," said Norton, "that is one matter which is not open to discussion."

"Well," Mason remarked, smiling affably and keeping his temper, "that is primarily what I came here to discuss."

"No," Edward Norton said coldly, "that phase of the discussion is entirely out of order. You will confine yourself to a discussion of the legal rights of your client under the trust."

Mason's eyes were cold and appraising.

"I've always found," he said, "that a legal matter has a lot of angles. If you'll just look at this thing from the human viewpoint and consider…"

"I will allow you to be heard," Norton interrupted, in cold, level tones, "upon no matter other than the question of the legality of the trust and the interpretation thereof."

Mason pushed back his chair, and got to his feet.

His voice was as cold as that of the other. "I'm not accustomed to having people tell me what I will talk about and what I won't talk about. I'm here representing the rights of Frances Celane, your niece, and my client. I'll say anything I damned please concerning those rights!"

Edward Norton reached out to a button and pressed it with his bony forefinger. The gesture was utterly devoid of emotion.

"I am ringing," he said, "for the butler; who wild show you to the door. So far as I am concerned, the discussion is terminated."

Perry Mason planted his feet wide apart, standing spreadlegged, he said: "You'd better ring for two butlers, and the secretary too. It'll take all of them to put me out of here before I say what I've got to say!

"You're making a mistake, treating this niece of yours as though she were a chattel or a lump of clay. She's a highspirited, highstrung girl. I don't know where you get the idea that she's being blackmailed, but if you have any such idea…"

The door of the private office opened, and a broadshouldered, burly man, with a wooden face, bowed from the hips.

"You rang sir?" he asked.

"Yes," said Edward Norton, "show this gentleman out."

The butler put a firm hand on Perry Mason's arm. The lawyer shook him off, savagely, continued to face Norton.

"Nobody," he said, "is going to show me out, or is going to throw me out until I have had an opportunity to say what I want to say. If that girl is being blackmailed, you'd better act like a human being instead of a cash register, and give her a break…"

There was a rustle of motion, and Frances Celane rushed into the room.

She looked at Mason with black eyes, which gave the effect of being expressionless, with a face that seemed pouting.

"You've done all you can do, Mr. Mason," she said.

Mason continued to glower at the man behind the desk.

"You're more than a treasurer," he said, "or should be. She should be able to look to you for…"

The girl tugged at his arm.

"Please, Mr. Mason," she said, "please. I know you're trying to do me a favor, but it's going to have just the opposite effect. Please don't."

Mason took a deep breath, turned, and stalked rigidly from the room. The butler slammed the door shut behind him. Mason turned to Frances Celane and said: "Of all the obstinate, coldblooded, unsympathetic icebergs I have ever met, that man is the worst!"

She looked up at him and laughed.

"I knew," she said, "that if I tried to explain to you how utterly obstinate my uncle was, you would never believe me. So I welcomed the opportunity to let you find out firsthand. Now you understand the necessity for taking legal steps."

"All right," said Mason, grimly, "we'll take them."