The Case of the Howling Dog

"The girl's tried to make herself up as ugly as possible," Mason said, frowning, "but she's rather young to be a housekeeper, and there's just a chance that while Mrs. Foley was ill in bed, there might have been some developments which brought about the woman's sudden departure."

"Not gossiping, are you, Mason?" asked Pemberton.

"No," said Mason gravely, "I'm speculating, that's all."

"Why speculate?"

"Because," said Perry Mason, "when a man makes an accusation against my client, claiming my client's insane, that man has got to be prepared to have a fight on his hands."

The back door opened, and Mrs. Benton came out.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Mr. Foley wants you to come in. I shouldn't have got mad and walked away. Will you excuse it?"

"Don't mention it," said Bill Pemberton. "The fault was ours," and he looked at Perry Mason.

"I came out here," said Perry Mason, "to get information, and to see that my client had a square deal."

"No," said Bill Pemberton slowly, "we came out here to see if the dog had been howling. That's about as far as I figure we're going to pry into the situation here."

Perry Mason said nothing.

The young woman led them through the back door, into a kitchen. A small, slender Chinese, attired in a cook apron, regarded them with glittering, beady eyes.

"Whassa malla?" he asked.

"We're trying to find out about the dog…" Perry Mason began, but was interrupted by Pemberton.

"Just a moment, Mason, please," he said; "let me handle this. I understand handling these Chinks pretty well."

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Ah Wong."

"You cook here?"

"I cook."

"You savvy him one piecie dog?"

"Heap savvy."

"You hear dog makum noise? Hearum make howl at night?"

The Chinese shook his head slowly.

"Dog no howl?" asked Pemberton.

"No howl," said the Chinese.

Pemberton shrugged his shoulders.

"Shucks," he said, "that's all we need. You can see for yourself, Mason, how it is. Your man just went off his nut, that's all."

"Well," Perry Mason told him, "I'd have asked the questions of this Chinese boy in a little different way."

"That's all right," Pemberton said, "I know how to handle them. Had lots of experience on lottery cases. You've got to talk to them that way. They don't savvy any other kind of lingo. It's the way they talk and the way they learn English. That's the way you get the facts out of them. You go ahead and spout a lot of language they don't understand, and they'll say yes, every time, and not know what they're saying yes to."

"I think," said Mrs. Benton, "that Mr. Foley would like to have you gentlemen wait in the library, if you care to. He'll be with you in just a moment."

She held open the door of the kitchen, and the two men walked through a serving pantry, a dining room, a living room, turned to the left and entered a library, the walls of which were lined with books. There was a huge table running down the center of the room, deep leather chairs, each with a floor lamp by it, and tall windows, with heavy drapes which could be pulled along poles by an ingenious cord arrangement, so as to shut out every bit of outside light.

"I think," said Mrs. Benton, "that if you will just be seated…"

A door opened explosively, and Clinton Foley stood on the threshold, his face twisting with emotion, his eyes glittering. A paper was in his hand.

"Well," he said, "it's all over. You don't need to worry about the dog."

The deputy sheriff puffed on his cigar complacently.

"I quit worrying about him as soon as I talked with this girl and the Chink cook," he said. "We're going over and see Cartright now."

Foley laughed, and his laugh was harsh and metallic. At the sound of that laugh, Bill Pemberton took the cigar from his lips, and stared with a perplexed frown.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"My wife," said Clinton Foley, drawing himself up with some dignity, "has seen fit to run away. She has left with another man."

Pemberton said nothing. Perry Mason stood with feet wide apart, staring from Foley to the young housekeeper, then glancing at Pemberton.

"It may interest you gentlemen to know," said Foley, speaking with the ponderous dignity of one who is trying to conceal his emotions, "that the object of her affections, the man who has supplanted me in her life, is none other than the gentleman who lived next door — our esteemed contemporary, Mr. Arthur Cartright, the man who made all of the hullabaloo about the howling dog, in order to get me before the police authorities, so that he could carry out his scheme of running away with my wife."

Perry Mason said in an undertone to Pemberton: "Well, that shows the man isn't crazy; he's crazy like a fox."

Foley came striding into the room, glowering at Perry Mason.

"That will do, sir," he said. "You are here by sufferance only. You will keep your remarks to yourself."