“You didn’t recognize my voice,” he said quietly.
“I thought I did,” she said demurely.
Mason said, “There’s no thinking about it. I’ve been in bed for the last two or three hours, but I couldn’t prove any alibi. If the police thought I’d been to the house I’d have the devil of a time trying to square myself. You’ve figured that all out.”
She looked up at him and suddenly flung her arms around his neck.
“Oh, Perry,” she said, “please don’t look at me that way. Of course, I’m not going to tell on you. You’re in this thing just as deep as I am. You did what you did to save me. We’re in it together. I’m going to stand by you, and you’re going to stand by me.”
He pushed her away and put his fingers on her wet arm, until she had released her hold. Then he turned her face once more until he could look in her eyes.
“We’re not in this thing a damned bit,” he said. “You’re my client, and I’m sticking by you. That’s all. You understand that?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Whose coat is that you’re wearing?”
“Carl’s. I found it in the corridor. I started out first in the rain, and then realized I would get soaking wet. There was a coat in the hallway, and I put it on.”
“Okay. You be thinking that over while I’m driving up to the place. I don’t know whether the police will be there or not. Do you know if any one else heard the shot?”
“No, I don’t think they did.”
“All right,” he said, “if we’ve got an opportunity to go over this thing before the police get there, you forget this business about running down to the drug store and putting in the telephone call. Tell them that you called me from the house, and then you ran down the hill to meet me. And that was why you were wet. You couldn’t stay in the house. You were afraid. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” she said, meekly.
Perry Mason switched out the dome light in the car and snapped back the gear lever, eased in the clutch, and started the machine boring through the rain.
She came over and cuddled closely to him, her left arm around his neck, her right arm resting on his leg.
“Oh,” she wailed, “I’m so afraid, and I feel so alone.”
“Shut up,” he said, “and think!”
He drove the car at a savage pace up the long grade, turned onElmwood Drive, and went into second as he climbed the knoll on which the big house was situated. He turned in at the driveway and parked the car directly in front of the porch.
“Now listen,” he said to her in a low voice, as he helped her out, “the house seems to be quiet. Nobody else heard the shot. The police aren’t here yet. You’ve got to use your head. If you’ve been lying to me, it will mean that you’re going to get into serious difficulties.”
“I haven’t been lying,” she said. “I told you the truth—honest to God.”
“Okay,” he said, and they sprinted across the porch.
“The door’s unlocked. I left it unlocked,” she said, “you can go right in.” And she hung back, in order to let him be the first to enter the house.
Perry Mason tried the door.
“No,” he said, “it’s locked. The night latch is on. Have you got your key?”
She looked at him blankly.
“No,” she said, “my key’s in my purse.”
“Where’s your purse?” he asked her.
She stared at him with eyes that were indistinct, but her poise was that of one who is rigid with terror.
“My God!” she said, “I must have left my purse up in the room with… with my husband’s body!”
“You had it with you when you went upstairs?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, “I know I did. But I must have dropped it. I don’t remember having it with me when I came out.”
“We’ve got to get in,” he said. “Is there another door that’s open?”
She shook her head, then suddenly said, “Yes, there’s a back door where the servants come in. There’s a key that we keep hanging up under the eaves of the garage. It will open the door, and we can get in that way.”
“Let’s go.”
They walked down the steps from the porch and around the gravel driveway which circled the house. The house was dark and silent. Wind was lashing the shrubbery, and rain was pelting against the sides of the house, but no noise whatever came from the interior of the gloomy mansion.
“Don’t make any noise,” he cautioned her. “I want to get in without the servants hearing us. If nobody’s awake, I want to have a minute or two to check things over after I see how the land lies inside.”
She nodded, groped in the eaves of the garage, found the key, and opened the back door.
“All right,” he said. “You sneak through the house and let me in the front door. I’ll lock this back door from the outside, and put the key back in the place on the nail.”
She nodded her head and vanished in the darkness of the house. He closed the door, locked it, and put the key back where it had been; then he retraced his steps around the front of the house.
Chapter 8
Perry Mason reached the front door and stood there, waiting on the porch for what seemed to him to be two or three minutes before he heard Eva Belter’s step and the click of the lock. She opened the door and smiled at him.
There was a light burning in the entrance hall, a night light which illuminated things vaguely, showing the dark stretch of stairs which led up to the upper floor, the furniture of the reception hallway, a couple of straight back chairs, an ornamental mirror, a coat rack, and umbrella stand.
There was a woman’s coat on the rack, two canes, and three umbrellas in the stand. A trickle of rain water had oozed from the bottom of the stand where the umbrellas were kept, and made a puddle which reflected the rays of the night light.
“Look here,” said Mason in a whisper. “You didn’t turn out the light when you went out?”
“No,” she said, “it was just like this when I left.”
“You mean that your husband let some one come in this door to see him without turning on any lights except that night light?”
“Yes,” she said, “I guess so.”
“Don’t you ordinarily keep a brighter light burning over the stairs until the family has retired?”
“Sometimes,” she said, “but George has his upstairs apartment all to himself. He doesn’t bother the rest of us, and we don’t bother him.”
“All right,” said Mason. “Let’s go on up. Turn on the light.”
She clicked a switch, and the stairway was flooded with light.
Mason led the way up the stairs and into the reception room of the suite where he had first seen George Belter.
The door through which Belter had entered on that occasion was now closed. Mason turned the knob, opened the door and stepped into the study.
It was a huge room, done in much the same style as the sitting room. The chairs were huge and heavily upholstered. The desk was twice the size of an ordinary large desk. There was a door open which led into a bedroom, and, within a few feet of that door, was the door which led into the bath. There was also a door from the bedroom to the bathroom.
The body of George Belter lay on the floor, just inside the doorway from the bathroom to the study. It was wrapped in a flannel dressing gown, which had fallen open along the front and showed that underneath the gown the body was entirely nude.
Eva Belter gave a little scream and clung closely to Mason. Mason shook her off, strode to the body, and knelt down.