Mason's hand dropped to the young man's shoulder. "We're not trying to slip anything over on her," he said.
"What are you hanging around here for, then?"
"I want to get information," Mason said, "so I can represent a client."
"Who's the client?"
Mason grinned. "Believe it or not, but the client's a cat."
"A what?"
Winifred interrupted. "It's Charlie Ashton, Doug—you know, the boys have to keep him on as caretaker, but Sam has threatened to poison the cat, and Mr. Mason's representing Ashton, trying to fix things up so he can keep the cat."
Keene 's jaw set grimly. "Do you mean to say that Sam Laxter threatens to poison Clinker?"
She nodded.
"Well, I'll be damned," Keene said slowly. He turned to Perry Mason. "Listen," he said, "I was going to keep out of that, but if Sam's pulling stuff like that, ask him what became of the Koltsdorf diamonds."
Winifred said sharply, "Doug!"
He swung to face her. "Don't stop me," he said. "You don't know what I know. I know stuff about Sam that's going to come out. No, don't worry, Winnie, I'm not going to bring it out; I'm going to keep out of it. It's Edith DeVoe. She…"
Winifred interrupted him firmly. "Mr. Mason is only interested in the cat, Doug."
Keene laughed, a quick, nervous laugh. "I'm sorry. Guess I got pretty well worked up. I can't stand the idea of anyone poisoning an animal, and when it comes down to brass tacks, Clinker is worth a dozen Sam Laxters. Oh, well, I'll keep out of it."
Paul Drake casually seated himself on one of the stools.
"What's going to come out about Sam Laxter?" he asked.
Mason dropped his hand to the detective's shoulder. "Wait a minute, Paul. These people have shot square with us; let's shoot square with them."
He turned to Winifred. "Do you want to give us any information?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I want to keep out of it and I want Doug to keep out of it."
Mason took Drake's arm and literally pushed him along the passageway between the booths on one side and the stools on the other. "Come on, Paul," he said.
As the outer door closed behind them Winifred's eyes flashed them a smile. She waved her arm.
"What did you do that for?" Drake protested. "That fellow knows something. He's been talking with Edith DeVoe."
"Who's Edith DeVoe?"
"She's the nurse who lived there in the house. I had a hunch she might know something."
Mason, staring moodily up and down the street, said, "If I catch Shuster hanging around here, I'm going to punch his face. Can you imagine the damn shyster going in and taking advantage of the kid and getting her to sign a paper like that?"
Drake said, "It's his style. What can you do now? You haven't got any client who can bust the will. That will's just as good as gold, isn't it?"
"I've got a cat for a client," Mason said grimly.
"Can a cat contest a will?"
Mason's face showed the determination of a born fighter. "Damned if I know," he said. "Come on, we're going to see Edith DeVoe."
"But you can't contest a will unless you're representing an interested party. Two of the interested parties take under the will and the other one has signed away her rights," the detective protested.
"I've told you before," Mason said, "that I never hit where the other man's expecting the punch."
Chapter 5
In the taxicab, the detective gave Perry Mason a few pertinent bits of information. "There's something off color about your caretaker, Charles Ashton," he said. "He was riding with Peter Laxter, his employer, and they were in an automobile accident. It busted Ashton up pretty badly. He tried to collect damages and couldn't. The driver of the other car wasn't insured and didn't have a dime. Ashton made quite a squawk, trying to get something, said he hadn't saved a dime."
"That's nothing unusual," Mason remarked. "It's a regular sales talk. He might have had a million dollars salted away and still have said the same thing."
Drake went on in the mechanical tone of voice of one who is primarily interested in facts rather than in their interpretation. "He had a bank account at one of the banks. As nearly as we can find out, it was the only bank account he ever had. He deposited his salary there. He'd saved something like four hundred dollars. After the accident, he spent it all, and still owes some to a doctor."
"Wait a minute," Mason interposed, "didn't Peter Laxter take care of his expenses in that automobile accident?"
"No, but don't jump at conclusions on account of it. Ashton told one of his friends that Laxter would take care of him all right in the long run, but Laxter thought he'd stand a better chance recovering damages if he could show that the money for the doctors and hospital bills had been paid out of his own savings."
"Go ahead," Mason said. "You're leading up to something. What is it?"
"Shortly before the house burned, Laxter started cashing in. I can't find how much, but it was plenty. Three days before the house burned down, Ashton rented two largesize safety deposit boxes. The boxes were rented by Charles Ashton and in his name, but he told the clerk in charge that he had a halfbrother who was to be given access to the boxes at any time. The clerk told him his halfbrother would have to come in and register for signature. Ashton said the halfbrother was sick in bed and couldn't move, but couldn't he take out a card and have the halfbrother sign. He said he'd guarantee the signature, indemnify the bank against any claim, and all that sort of stuff. The bank gave him a card for his halfbrother's signature. Ashton went out and came back in an hour or so with the signature on the card."
"What was the name?"
"Clammert—Watson Clammert."
"Who's Clammert?" Mason asked. "Is it a phony?"
"No," Drake said, "he's probably Ashton's halfbrother. That is, he was; he's dead now. He wasn't registered in the city directory, but I took a chance, inquired at the motor vehicle department and found Clammert had a driving license. I got the address, chased him down and found that Watson Clammert had died within twentyfour hours after affixing his signature to that card."
"Anything fishy about the death?" Mason asked.
"Absolutely nothing. He died of natural causes. He died in a hospital. Nurses were in constant attendance, but—and here's the phony part—he'd been in a coma for days prior to his death. He hadn't regained consciousness."
"Then how the devil," Mason asked, "could he have signed his name on that card?"
Drake said tonelessly, "I'll bite, how could he?"
"What else about him?" Mason asked.
"Apparently he and Ashton are chips off the same block. Ashton went for years without seeing him or speaking to him. It wasn't until Ashton heard that Clammert was dying in the charity ward of a hospital that he came to help him out."
"How did you get this stuff?" Mason asked.
"Ashton talked quite a bit to one of the nurses. She got a kick out of him. He was so bitterly vindictive and yet so bighearted. He'd heard Clammert was sick and broke, so he hobbled around, making a canvass of the hospitals until he found Clammert lying unconscious and near death. He dug down in his pocket and did everything he could, hired specialists, got special nurses and haunted the bedside. He left instructions with the nurse to see that Clammert had everything money could buy. Of course, the nurse knew he was dying and the doctors knew it, but, naturally, they kidded Ashton along, telling him there was perhaps one chance in a million, and Ashton told them to take that chance.
"But just to show you what a cantankerous cuss you've got for a client, he stipulated that when Clammert recovered consciousness, he was never to know who his benefactor had been. Ashton told the nurses they quarreled years ago and hadn't seen each other since—and what do you think they quarreled about?"