The Case of the Velvet Claws   ::   Гарднер Эрл Стенли

For just a moment she seemed inclined to ignore his invitation. Then she walked to the chair across from the desk sat down in it, and looked at Perry Mason.

“Well?” he asked.

“You’re Mr. Mason, the attorney?”

“Yes.”

The blue eyes which had been looking at him in cautious appraisal, suddenly widened as though by an effort. They gave to her face an expression of utter innocence.

“I am in trouble,” she said.

Perry Mason nodded as though the news meant nothing to him, other than a matter of daily routine.

When she didn’t go on, he said: “Most people who come in here are—”

The woman said, abruptly: “You don’t make it easy for me to tell you about it. Most of the attorneys I have consulted…”

She was suddenly silent.

Perry Mason smiled at her. Slowly he got to his feet, put his hands on the edge of the desk and leaned his weight on them so that his body was leaning toward her across the desk. “Yes,” he said, “I know. Most of the attorneys that you’ve consulted have had expensive suites of offices and a lot of clerks running in and out. You’ve paid them big money and haven’t had anything much to show for it. They’ve bowed and scraped when you came in the room, and charged you big retainers. But when you get in a real jam you don’t dare to go to them.”

Her wide eyes narrowed somewhat. For two or three seconds they stared at each other, and then the woman lowered her eyes.

Perry Mason continued to speak, slowly and forcefully, yet without raising his voice.

“All right,” he said, “I’m different. I get my business because I fight for it, and because I fight for my clients. Nobody ever called on me to organize a corporation, and I’ve never yet probated an estate. I haven’t drawn up over a dozen contracts in my life, and I wouldn’t know how to go about foreclosing a mortgage. People that come to me don’t come to me because they like the looks of my eyes, or the way my office is furnished, or because they’ve known me at a club. They come to me because they need me. They come to me because they want to hire me for what I can do.”

She looked up at him then. “Just what is it that you do, Mr Mason?” she asked.

He snapped out two words at her. “I fight!”

She nodded vigorously. “That’s exactly what I want you to do for me.”

He sat down again in his swivel chair, and lit a cigarette. The atmosphere seemed to have been cleared as though the two personalities had created an electrical storm which had subsided.