The Case of the Velvet Claws   ::   Гарднер Эрл Стенли

Loring barely glanced at the photograph, but he shook his head emphatically.

“No,” he said, “that wasn’t the woman.”

“You haven’t even looked at the picture yet. You’d better look at it before you get too positive in your denials.”

He thrust the picture in front of Loring’s eyes. Loring took the clipping and studied the picture for some ten or fifteen seconds.

“No,” he said, “that isn’t the woman.”

“Took you quite a while this time to make up your mind, didn’t it?” Mason pointed out.

Loring said nothing.

Mason suddenly turned and nodded to Drake.

“All right,” he said to Loring, “if that’s the attitude you want to take, you’ll have to take your medicine. You can’t expect us to protect you if you’re going to lie to us.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Come on, Drake. Let’s go,” Mason said, grimly.

The two men walked from the apartment, and closed the door behind them. In the corridor, Drake said: “What do you make of him?”

“He’s a rat or he’d have tried the stunt of becoming indignant, and asking us what the hell we meant by inquiring into his business. He looked to me as though he’d been on the dodge sometime in his life, and he’s afraid of the law. He’s used to being bullied by detectives.”

“About the way I’ve got him sized up,” said Drake. “What are we going to do?”

“Well,” said Mason, “we can take this picture and see if we can find some of the neighbors in the apartment who can identify her.”

“The newspaper picture isn’t so very good. I wonder if we can’t get a photograph,” Drake said.

“We’re working against time,” Mason reminded him. “Something may break in this thing almost any minute, and I want to keep ahead of the game.”

“We didn’t get very rough with him,” Drake pointed out. “He’s the kind of a man who would cave in if we went after him, hammer and tongs.”

“Sure,” said Mason. “We’ll do that when we get back. I want to get a little more dope on him if I can. I think he’ll turn yellow as soon as we put a little pressure on him.”

Steps sounded on the stairs.

“Wait a minute,” said Drake, “this looks like somebody coming.”

A thickset man, with heavy shoulders, plodded patiently up the stairs and into the corridor. His clothes were shiny, and his cuffs were frayed. Yet there was an air of determination about him.

“Process server,” whispered Mason to Drake.

The man came toward them.