The Case of the Velvet Claws Read Online Free PDF Page B

know."
    "I'll wait here at this number," Mason said. "You call me back here," and hung up.
    He sat on a stool at the ice cream counter and drank a glass of plain carbonated water, without haste and without showing any emotion. His eyes were thoughtful, but his manner was calm.
    At the end of six or seven minutes the telephone rang again, and Mason answered it. "Smith talking," he whined.
    Locke's voice came over the wire. "Yes, we'd be willing to pay that price provided we could get the proof."
    "Okay," said Mason, "you be in your office tomorrow morning, and I'll get in touch with you there. But don't back out on me now, because I'm turning down this three hundred and fifty dollar offer."
    "Listen, I'd like to see you tonight and get the thing cleaned up right now." There was a certain quaver of excitement in Locke's voice.
    "You can't do that," Mason told him. "I could give you the information tonight, but I can't give you the proofs until tomorrow."
    "Well," insisted Locke, "you could give me the information tonight, and then I'd pay you when you brought in the proofs tomorrow."
    Mason gave a mocking laugh. "Now I'll tell one," he said.
    Locke said, irritably: "Oh, well, have it your own way."
    Mason chuckled. "Thanks," he said, "I think I will," and hung up the receiver.
    He walked back to his automobile and sat in it for almost twenty minutes. At the end of that time, Frank Locke came out of the hotel, accompanied by a young woman. He had been shaved and massaged until his skin showed a trace of red under its sallow brown. He had the smugly complacent air of a man of the world, who rather enjoys knowing his way about.
    The young woman with him was not over twenty-one or two, if one could judge by her face. She had a well curved figure, which was displayed to advantage; a perfectly expressionless face; expensive garments and just the faintest suggestion of too much make-up about her. She was beautiful in a certain full blown manner.
    Perry Mason waited until they had taken a taxi, then he went into the hotel, and walked over to the telephone desk.
    The girl looked up with anxious eyes, put a surreptitious hand to the front of her waist, and pulled out a piece of paper.
    On the piece of paper had been scribbled a telephone number: Freyburg 629803.
    Perry Mason nodded to her and slipped the piece of paper in his pocket.
    "Was that the conversation – that line about paying for information?" he asked.
    "I can't divulge what went over the line."
    "I know," said Mason, "but you'd tell me if that wasn't the conversation, wouldn't you?"
    "Maybe," she said.
    "All right, then, are you telling me anything?"
    "No!"
    "That's all I wanted to know," he told her, and grinned.

4.
    Perry Mason worked into the Detective Bureau at Police Headquarters.
    "Drumm in here?" he asked.
    One of the men nodded, and jerked a thumb toward an inner door.
    Perry Mason walked in.
    "Sidney Drumm," he said to one of the men who was sitting on the corner of a desk, smoking. Some one raised his voice, and yelled: "Oh, Drumm, come on out."
    A door opened, and Sidney Drumm looked around until he saw Perry Mason, then grinned.
    "Hello, Perry," he said.
    He was a tall, thin man, with high cheek bones, and washed-out eyes. He would have looked more natural with a green eye-shade on his forehead, a pen behind his ear, keeping a set of books on a high stool, than in the Detective Bureau at Police Headquarters, which was, perhaps, why he made such a good detective.
    Mason jerked his head and said, "I think I've got something, Sidney."
    "Okay," said Drumm, "be right with you."
    Mason nodded and walked out into the corridor. Sidney Drumm joined him in about five minutes.
    "Shoot," he said.
    "I'm chasing down a witness in something that may be of value to you," Mason said to the detective. "I don't know yet just where it's going to lead. Right now, I'm working for a client, and I want to get the low down on a telephone number."
    "What telephone number?"
    "Freyburg