The Case of the Velvet Claws   ::   Гарднер Эрл Стенли

Mason slammed the door shut behind him, walked over to her. “For God’s sake, Della,” he pleaded, “won’t you have confidence in me?”

She flashed him a swift glance.

“Of course I’ve got confidence in you.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“I’m surprised and a little confused, that’s all,” she said.

He stood surveying her, moodyeyed, hopeless.

“All right,” he said, at length. “You get the State Bureau of Vital Statistics on the telephone, and stay on the telephone until you get the information you want. Get somebody at the head of the department if you can. Never mind what it costs. We want the information, and we want it right now. We want to know whether or not Norma Veitch was ever married. My best guess is that she was. And we want to know if there’s been a divorce.”

Della Street stared at him.

“What’s that got to do with the murder case?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Veitch is probably her real name. That is, it’s her mother’s name, and it would be the name that was on the marriage license as the name of the bride when she was married. Of course, she might not have been married, and she might not have been married in this state. But there’s something funny about the whole set up. And there’s something in her past that she’s holding back. I want to know what it is.”

“You don’t think Norma Veitch was mixed up in it in any way, do you?” Della Street asked.

Mason’s eyes were cold, his face determined.

“All I’ve got to do is to raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury,” he told her. “Don’t forget that. Get on the telephone and get that information.”

He walked into his inner office and closed the door. He started pacing back and forth, his thumbs propped in the armholes of his vest, his head bowed in concentration.

He was still pacing the floor, half an hour later, when Della Street opened the door.

“You were right,” she said.

“How?”

“She was married. I got the dope from the Bureau of Vital Statistics. She was married six months ago to a man named Harry Loring. There’s no record of a divorce.”

Perry Mason gained the door with three quick strides, pushed it impatiently to one side, strode across the outer office and went at almost a run down the corridor to the stairs. He took the stairs down to the floor on which Paul Drake had his office and banged on the exit door of Drake’s office with impatient fists.

Paul Drake opened the door.