The electric lights gave a sickly pale illumination to Perry Mason's office. It was that hour of the morning when the concrete caverns of the city cliff dwellers appear to the greatest disadvantage. Outside was the freshness of early dawn, contrasting with the stale air of the office. It was some half hour before sunrise. There was only enough daylight to emphasize the inefficiency of the manmade substitute.
Perry Mason stretched out in his swivel chair, placed his heels on the corner of the desk, lighted a cigarette. "When the newspaper reporters come in, Della, keep them in the outer office and bring them in all at once."
She nodded. Her eyes showed worry.
Paul Drake moved over and sat on the edge of Perry Mason's desk.
"You and I," he said, "had better pool a little information."
Mason's eyes were expressionless. "Such as what?" he asked.
"My men tell me Edith DeVoe was killed. She was beaten over the head with a club. The club was part of a crutch which had been sawed up."
Perry Mason smoked in silence.
"Of course, I knew that you had something in mind when you went up to Doug Keene's apartment. When I saw the bloodstained clothing, I knew it didn't come from the Ashton murder."
"But at that time," Mason asked, "you didn't know anything about the DeVoe murder?"
"Certainly not."
"That," Mason said, "might be a good thing to remember—in case you were questioned."
"Did you know about it?"
Mason stared steadily out of the window into the graying dawn.
After a few moments, when it became apparent he didn't intend to answer the question, Drake went on, "Do you know a man named Babson? He's an expert cabinetmaker. He does all sorts of woodwork, and, as a sideline, makes crutches."
Mason's face showed interest.
"A couple of weeks ago Ashton dropped into Babson's place. Ashton had his crutch made there. He wanted his crutch altered. He wanted a hole bored near the tip of the crutch, wanted it reinforced with metal tubing and lined with chamois skin. He wanted the metal threaded so that a cap could go on the end and the whole business be concealed under the rubber tip of the crutch."
Mason said slowly, "That's interesting."
"About three days ago," Drake went on, "Babson was questioned about that crutch business. A man who gave his name as Smith said he was representing an insurance company that was interested in Ashton's injuries. He wanted to know if Ashton had secured a new crutch or had any alterations made to the old one. Babson started to tell about the changes, then thought better of it and started questioning this man, Smith. Smith walked out."
"Got a description?" Mason asked tersely.
"Five foot eleven, age fortyfive, weight a hundred and eighty pounds, light felt hat, blue suit, and a peculiar scar across the face. He was driving a green Pontiac."
"When did that report come in?" Mason asked.
"The night operator handed it to me when I went past the office. It had been on my desk for some little time. One of the boys turned it in in his report."
"Good work," Mason said. "How'd he happen to call on Babson?"
"You wanted a complete checkup on Ashton, so I told the boys to go the limit. Naturally, we were interested in the place where his crutch had been made."
"Well," Mason told him, "add one more name to your list—put a tail on Jim Brandon. Find out all you can about him. See if he's been flashing any ready money lately."
"Already done," Drake said laconically. "I put a couple of men on him as soon as I got the report. Now let me ask you a few questions."
"Such as what?" Mason inquired.
"Such as where you're going to stand in this thing. Did you have to telephone the police, promising to surrender that kid?"
"Sure I had to do it," Perry Mason said with a savage impatience. "Can't you get the sketch? He's either guilty as hell or else that was a plant. If it's a plant, he can't dodge it. He's got to face it. If he tries to run away, he's going to be picked up. If the police pick him up and he's running away, he's headed for the gallows. He'll stretch hemp in spite of anything I can do. If he's guilty and surrenders and stands up like a man, faces the music, pleads guilty and tells his story to the court, I can probably get him off with life imprisonment."
"But you're gambling that he isn't guilty?" Della Street asked.
"I'm gambling, with everything I've got, that he isn't guilty."
"That's just the point, Chief," Della Street protested in hot indignation. "You're gambling too much. You're staking your professional reputation backing the play of an emotional kid about whom you know nothing."
Perry Mason grinned at her, a grin which held no amusement, but was the savage grin of a fighter coming back into the ring to face a formidable adversary who has already inflicted terrific punishment. "Sure I am," he agreed. "I'm a gambler. I want to live life while I'm living it. We hear a lot about the people who are afraid to die, but we don't hear so much about the people who are afraid to live; yet it's a common failing. I have faith in Winifred, and I have faith in Douglas Keene. They're in a bad spot and they need someone to front for them, and I'm going to do it!"
Paul Drake's voice still held a note of pleading.
"Listen, Perry, it isn't too late to back out. You don't know anything about that kid. Look at the facts against him. He…"
"Shut up, Paul," Perry Mason said without rancor. "I know how the facts stack up just as well as you do."
"But why should you stake your reputation on the innocence of some kid when everything points to his guilt?"
"Because," Mason said, "I play a nolimit game. When I back my judgment, I back it with everything I have. I try not be wrong."
"A nolimit game makes for big winnings and big losings," Della Street pointed out.
Mason said impatiently, with a gesture which included both of them, "What the hell can a man lose? He can't lose his life because he doesn't own that, anyway. He only has a lease on life. He can lose money, and money doesn't mean one damn thing as compared with character. All that really counts is a man's ability to live, to get the most out of it as he goes through it, and he gets the most kick out of it by playing a nolimit game."
A buzzer sounded in the office as the door of the entrance office opened and closed. Drake nodded to Della Street. She rose and slid through the doorway into the outer office. Paul Drake lit a cigarette and said, "Perry, you're a cross between a boy and a philosopher, an impractical, hardhitting visionary, a damned altruistic cynic, a credulous skeptic… and, dammit, how I envy you your outlook on life!"
Della Street opened the door and lowered her voice apprehensively. "Sergeant Holcomb is out there," she said, "with a whole flock of newspaper reporters."
"Did Holcomb bring the newspaper reporters?"
"No. I think he tried to beat them to it. They've been tagging along behind. He seems irritated."
Perry Mason grinned, blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. "Show the gentlemen in," he said.
Della Street ventured a grin. "Does that include Sergeant Holcomb?"
"Just this once, it does," Mason told her.
Della Street flung open the door. "Come in, gentlemen," she said.
Sergeant Holcomb pushed his way through the door. Back of him appeared several men who spread out fanwise as they entered the room, took up positions against the wall. Some of them took out notebooks. All of them had an attitude of listening intently, the attitudes of spectators at the opening round of a prize fight, who scrouge forward to the edge of their chairs lest they miss a single blow in what promises to be an encounter of whirlwind rapidity.
"Where's Douglas Keene?" Sergeant Holcomb demanded. Perry Mason inhaled a lungful of smoke, let it seep out through his nostrils in twin streams. "I'm sure I don't know, Sergeant," he said in the patient tone an elder uses in addressing an excited child.
"By God, you've got to know."
Mason made an unsuccessful attempt at a smoke ring. "The air's too churned up," he explained to Paul Drake in an audible aside. "It's hard to blow them when there are too many people in the room."
Sergeant Holcomb pounded his fist on Mason's desk. "By God," he said, "the day is past when you criminal attorneys can play tag with the law. You know what they're doing now to people who harbor public enemies."
"Is Douglas Keene a public enemy?" Mason asked innocently.
"He's a murderer."
"Indeed! Whom did he murder?"
"Two people. Charles Ashton and Edith DeVoe."
Perry Mason's tongue made clicking noises against the roof of his mouth. "He shouldn't have done that, Sergeant," he said.
One of the reporters snickered audibly. Holcomb's face darkened. "Go ahead and crack wise," he said, "all you want to, but I'm going to get you for aiding a fugitive from justice."
"Is he a fugitive from justice?"
"He most certainly is."
"He's going to surrender at five o'clock tonight," Mason said, taking another drag at his cigarette.
"We'll catch him before that."
"Where is he?" Mason asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I don't know," Sergeant Holcomb bellowed. "If I did I'd go pick him up."
Mason sighed, turned to Paul Drake and said, apologetically, "He's going to put his hands on Keene before five o'clock tonight, yet he insists he doesn't know where Keene is. I've offered to surrender him at five o'clock and yet he won't believe I don't know where he is. It isn't logical."
"You wouldn't promise to have that man in custody by five o'clock unless you knew where he was right now. And you're working out some scheme to beat the case while you've got him under cover," Holcomb accused.
Mason smoked in silence.
"You're a lawyer. You know what the penalty is for becoming an accessory after the fact. You know what happens to people who give aid to murderers."
"But," Mason pointed out patiently, "suppose it should turn out he wasn't a murderer, Holcomb?"
"Wasn't a murderer!" Holcomb almost screamed. "Wasn't a murderer? Why, do you know what the evidence is against that boy? He went out to see Charles Ashton. He was the last man to see Ashton alive. Now get this and get it straight. Ashton had a cat. The cat slept on Ashton's bed. Douglas Keene went out to get that cat; and he got the cat. Witnesses saw him when he entered the room, and saw him leaving the place with the cat in his arms.
"Now Ashton was murdered before the cat left the place. The cat had jumped in through the window. There were tracks on the bed where the cat had walked up and down. There was even a cat track squarely in the middle of Ashton's forehead, proving that the murder was committed before Keene left with the cat. Ashton was killed after ten o'clock and before eleven. Keene was there in Ashton's room shortly before ten and stayed there until he left with the cat after eleven."
Mason, pursing his lips, said, "That would make quite a case against Douglas Keene, if you were certain it was Ashton's cat he carried away."
"Of course it was Ashton's cat. Witnesses saw him, I tell you. The housekeeper saw him. She wasn't sleeping well. She was looking out her window when Keene left. She saw him with the cat in his arms. James Brandon, the chauffeur, was driving a car to the garage. He turned in the driveway, and the headlights hit Douglas Keene squarely. He'll swear Keene was carrying the cat."
"You mean Clinker?"
"I mean Clinker, if that's the cat's name."
"Under those circumstances," Mason said, "the weight a jury would give the testimony of these people would depend upon their ability to convince the jury of the identity of the cat. Where's the cat now, by the way, Sergeant?"
"I don't know," Sergeant Holcomb said, then added, significantly, "Do you?"
Perry Mason said slowly, "I don't think, Sergeant, there's any law in the Penal Code against giving shelter to a cat, is there? You're not by any chance accusing the cat of the murder, are you?"
"Go ahead and crack wise," Sergeant Holcomb said. "Do you know what I'm doing here? Do you know the real purpose of my coming here?"
Mason raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
Holcomb, pounding the desk with his fist, said, "I came here to tell you that Douglas Keene was wanted for murder. I came here to tell you that we're getting a warrant out for Douglas Keene's arrest. I came here to tell you the evidence against Douglas Keene so that if you continue to conceal Douglas Keene, we can have you convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude and have you disbarred. That's why I'm here. I'm going to tell you all of the evidence. When I leave here you're never going to be able to tell a jury or the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association you didn't know Douglas Keene was wanted for murder and that you didn't know the evidence that was against him."
"Rather shrewd, Sergeant," Perry Mason said. "In fact, it's very shrewd. You're closing the door to any possible defense that I might have, is that it?"
"That's exactly it. You're either going to turn up Douglas Keene, or you're going to be arrested, prosecuted, and eventually disbarred."
"Have you," Mason asked, "entirely finished? Have you told me all the evidence?"
"No. I haven't even told you half of it."
"And I take it, Sergeant, that you intend to tell me all."
"You're damn right I intend to tell you all."
Mason inclined his head in the receptive attitude of one who is about to listen intently. But Sergeant Holcomb's voice filled every corner of the office, seemed to rattle back from the windows.
"Edith DeVoe wanted to see Douglas Keene. She telephoned and left messages for him at several places. Douglas Keene went to call on her. The manager of Edith DeVoe's apartment house happened to be leaving the house just as Douglas Keene was pressing his finger against the button which rang Edith DeVoe's bell. When the manager opened the door, Keene took advantage of it by walking in. The manager naturally stopped him and asked him where he was going. Keene said he was going to see Miss DeVoe; that she had sent for him.
"Later on the district attorney went to question her. She was lying on the floor unconscious. She'd been literally clubbed to death. We went to Douglas Keene's room. We found that garments he had worn were bloodstained. There was blood on his shirt, on his collar, on his shoes, on his trousers. He had tried to wash out the bloodstains and failed. He'd tried to burn up some of his clothes and had even failed to do that. Shreds of cloth were left in the ashes, and they gave a chemical reaction which shows there was human blood on them."
"Was the cat there?" Mason asked.
Holcomb controlled himself with an effort. "No, the cat wasn't there."
"Just how would one make an absolute identification of a cat?" Perry Mason asked. "There's no way of fingerprinting a cat, is there, Sergeant?"
"Go ahead," Holcomb said grimly, "be as smart as you want to. You're a lawyer making his living defending murderers. Two months from now you'll be disbarred. You'll be walking the streets."
"So far," Mason remarked, "I haven't defended murderers. I have only defended persons accused of murder. You must appreciate, Sergeant, that there's quite a difference. But I'm serious about the cat, Sergeant. Suppose the housekeeper and the chauffeur should both swear Keene was carrying Clinker in his arms; and suppose I should line up a couple of dozen Persian cats in front of the witnesses and ask them to pick out Clinker. Do you suppose they could do it, and in the event they pick out one cat and swear that it was Clinker, do you suppose there's any way by which we could definitely establish to the jury that they were right?"
"So that's your game, is it?" Holcomb asked.
Mason smiled urbanely. "Why no, Sergeant, that's not my game. I was just asking you a question; that's all."
Sergeant Holcomb leaned across the desk, holding both edges of it with a grip which drew the skin white and taut across the knuckles.
"After a while, Mason," he said, "we get so we know just about what to expect with you. The police department isn't as dumb as you may think it is. And, just to give you a little something to think over, as soon as you telephoned that you were going to represent Douglas Keene and that he'd surrender at five o'clock tonight, I sent some of the boys out to locate the cat. And it just happened that I knew where to send them. Just for your information, we've picked up Clinker, and he's in police custody. He was in the apartment of your very efficient secretary, Miss Della Street. And the cat has been identified at police headquarters by the chauffeur and the housekeeper, and a label has been tied around his neck. And any time you want to start juggling cats in front of a jury, you won't have to worry about taking fingerprints, or switching cats, or pulling any of your other tricks, because Clinker will be right there with a tag around his neck."
Sergeant Holcomb turned on his heel and strode toward the outer office.
For a moment, Perry Mason's face was grim and tense. Then he gave a slow smile in the direction of the newspaper reporters.
"We'd like to ask you," one of the men said, "if you agree…"
Mason said slowly, "Gentlemen, you have a damned good story. Go ahead and publish it as it is." And then clamped his lips shut in the obstinate silence of one who knows how to keep quiet.