Chapter 8

Perry Mason tapped gently on the door of Edna Hammer’s bedroom. She opened it and said, “How did you leave the honeymooners?”

“Very much up in the air,” he answered, grinning, “and I hope you don’t throw me out for that one.”

“Come in and tell me about it. Remember, I’m a woman, and marriage means a lot to us, so don’t you omit one single detail.”

Mason seated himself, grinned and said, “We went to the airport. A pilot with a helmet dangling in one hand came forward and introduced himself. There was a cabin plane drawn up. The motors were running. Your uncle and Miss Mays entered the plane. We did a little wisecracking back and forth. Miss Mays blew me a kiss. The pilot got in, taxied the ship down the field, turned around, tested first one motor, then the other, came back into the wind and took off. The sun was just rising. The hills back of Burbank were a beautiful blue, and… Oh, yes, I nearly forgot, the weather report said there was clear visibility, gentle shifting winds, unlimited ceiling and good flying conditions all the way to Yuma.”

“Oh, you unromantic lawyers!” she exclaimed.

“And what did you do?” Mason asked.

“I was simply ravenous,” she said. “As soon as you folks had left I telephoned for a taxicab to come to the corner and wait. I sneaked out the back door, took the cab into Hollywood and got myself a light breakfast. Then I came sweeping back to the house in a taxicab, and announced I’d taken a bus back from Santa Barbara and was famished. I’ve ordered breakfast. It’s coming up in a few minutes.

“The butler,” Mason said, “wondered what happened to my coffee cup. I strolled off with it and he missed it.”

She frowned. “It’s here in the room. I’ll take it out on the patio and leave it on one of the tables. Perhaps we’d better go now.” She picked up the cup and saucer from the dresser. “My, I really feel like a criminal. Do all lawyers make people so delightfully furtive?”

“I’m afraid you can’t blame your capacity for intrigue upon your counsel… not after the way your stars told your uncle he should consult an attorney whose name contained five letters and stood for a stone or something similar.”

She giggled delightedly and said, “I don’t know what I’d do without my astrology. And the funny part of it is my uncle claims he doesn’t believe in it.”

“Do you believe in it?” Mason asked.

“Why not?”

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.

Sun was peeping into the patio. Edna Hammer sat down in one of the reclining chairs, placed the cup and saucer on a coffee table, inspected it critically and said, “It doesn’t look exactly right there, does it?”

“No,” Mason said. “Frankly, I think your butler was just a little suspicious—not that it makes any great difference now your uncle has gone.”

“Oh, but it does,” she said. “I couldn’t run out on Helen Warrington. You don’t know Bob Peasley. My heavens, he’d tear Jerry limb from limb—that is, he’d try to.” She paused to laugh at the idea of the somber Peasley becoming physically violent with the big, broadshouldered Harris. She picked up the cup and saucer, moved a few steps to one of the tiled coffee tables and pulled a catch. The hinged top swung upward, disclosing an oblong receptacle underneath the top. “I presume it was originally designed for holding knives, forks, spoons and napkins, but it makes a fine place to ditch things,” she said.

Mason watched her. Turning, she caught his eye and asked, “Why the expression?”

“What expression?”

“The peculiar look in your eye.”

“I didn’t know there was one.”

“What were you thinking of?”

“I was just thinking how little chance a clumsy man has when it comes to dealing with the finer mind of a woman.”

“In other words, that’s a nice way of saying that you think I keep bamboozling my uncle?”

“It depends on what you mean by bamboozling.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with using such mental faculties as you have in order to get what you want, do you?” she asked.

He shook his head and added, “Particularly when those mental faculties are accompanied by beauty.”

She said wistfully, “I wish I were beautiful. I’m not. I’ve got a swell figure, I know that. But my features aren’t regular. There’s too much animation in my face. I think a girl, to be beautiful, has to keep her face in repose. It makes for that virginal, dolllike something men like in their women, don’t you think so?”

“I hadn’t given it any particular thought—not along those lines,” Mason replied.

“I’ve given it lots of thought. I’d like to use my beauty. That’s what it’s for. Lots of people think I deliberately dress to show my figure. I do. I’m proud of it. Perhaps I’m a pagan little animal. Bob Peasley says I am. But I revel in having a goodlooking figure. I guess I don’t know what modesty…”

“I think,” Mason interrupted, “your butler seems to have something on his mind. He’s approaching rather purposefully.”

She broke off, stared at the butler and said in swift, low tones, “Remember, he mustn’t know I was here last night.”

She faced the butler, said, “What is it, Arthur?”

“Beg pardon,” he said, “but the sideboard drawer—I can’t get the top drawer open. It seems to be locked.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, then, after a moment, “are you sure you looked all around for the key, Arthur?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you look in the little brass bowl over to the right of the pitcher?”

“No, ma’am, I didn’t look there.”

“Well, let’s go look. It must be around there somewhere.” She gave Mason a meaning glance, started walking rapidly. Mason fell into step at her side and the butler followed, a deferential pace or two in the rear. At the sideboard, she tried the drawer, said, “It’s locked all right,” and then started looking around on the top of the sideboard, her hands fluttering swiftly about various places. “It must be here somewhere, Arthur,” she said, in the tone of a magician handing out a line of “patter” by which the attention of an audience is kept from his hands. “The key was in the drawer yesterday, I know. Someone must have inadvertently locked the drawer and placed the key somewhere nearby. It’s inconceivable that anyone would have carried it away. There can’t be anything in that drawer which… Why, here it is! It was right under the fold of this throw.”

The butler watched her as she fitted the key to the drawer and turned the lock. “I’m sorry that I bothered you,” he said. “I couldn’t find it. I thought perhaps you knew where it was.

She turned the lock, pulled the drawer open, suddenly gasped, and stood staring downward at a plushlined receptacle for a carving set. A smoothfinished black hornhandled fork glittered in its hollowed receptacle, but the place which should have held the carving knife was empty. She glanced significantly at Perry Mason, her eyes dark with panic. Then she said, “Just what was it you wanted, Arthur?”

“I’ll get it, Miss Edna, it’s quite all right. I just wanted the drawer opened.” He took out some salt dishes, and closed the drawer.

Edna Hammer raised her eyes to Perry Mason, then slipping her hand under his elbow, gripped his forearm and said, “Do come back out in the patio. I love it out there in the early morning.”

“What time are you going to have breakfast?” Mason asked. “I think we should go up and arouse Dr. Kelton.”

“Oh, we sort of singleshot on breakfast. We have it whenever we get up.”

“Nevertheless,” Mason said significantly, “I think Dr. Kelton would appreciate it if we called him.”

“Oh, I see,” she exclaimed quickly. “Yes, yes, you’re quite right. Let’s call Dr. Kelton.”

They walked toward the stairs. She said in a low voice, “I didn’t get you for a minute. You want to look in Uncle’s room?”

“We might as well.”

“I can’t understand it. You don’t suppose there’s any possibility… that…”

As her voice trailed away into silence, Mason said, “You didn’t look in the drawer last night before we locked it.”

“Nnnno,” she said, “I didn’t, but the knife must have been there.”

“Well,” Mason said, “we’ll see what we’ll see.”

She ran up the stairs ahead of him, her feet fairly flying up the treads, but when she had approached the door to her uncle’s bedroom she hung back and said, “Somehow, I’m afraid of what we’re going to find here.”

“Has the room been made up yet?” Mason asked.

“No, the housekeeper won’t start making beds until around nine o’clock.”

Mason opened the door. She entered the bedroom a step or two behind him. Mason, looking around him, said, “Everything seems to be in order—no corpses stacked in the corners or under the bed.”

“Please don’t try to keep my spirits up, Mr. Mason. I’ve got to be brave. It’s under the pillow, if it’s anywhere. That’s where it was the other morning. You look, I don’t dare.”

Mason walked to the bed, lifted the pillow. Under the pillow was a long, blackhandled carving knife. The blade was discolored with sinister reddish stains.