The Case of the Howling Dog

"You seem to think she's got plenty of IT."

"She's got something," said Mason slowly, "and I don't know what it is. She's gone to a lot of trouble to make herself up so she looks plain and homely. Women don't ordinarily do that."

Paul Drake grinned slowly.

"Women ordinarily do anything they damned please," he said.

Perry Mason said nothing for a few minutes, but drummed silently with his fingertips on the surface of the desk. Then he looked over at Paul Drake.

"The housekeeper says that Mrs. Foley left there in a taxicab this morning. Now, Cartright left his place last night and didn't come back. He was in very much of a hurry, because he sent an important letter to me by special delivery, but had his housekeeper mail it. Now, if you can find the taxicab that called for Mrs. Foley, and find where she was taken, you're quite likely to find some trace of Cartright at that place. That is, if the housekeeper is telling the truth."

"You think she isn't?"

"I don't know. I want to get all of the facts, then I'll sift them and sort them. I want the most complete reports possible. Put enough men on it to familiarize yourself with every angle of the case. Find out who these people are, where they've been, what they're doing and why."

"Put a tail on Foley?"

"Yes, put a tail on Foley. But don't let him know it. I want him watched wherever he goes."

Paul Drake got to his feet and ambled in a leisurely way toward the door.

"I get you," he said, "I'll get started."

He opened the door, stepped through the outer office and vanished.

Apparently the man moved with a shambling, leisurely stride; yet an ordinary man would have been hard put to keep up with him. Paul Drake's efficiency, both in his work and in his motions, lay in the fact that he never became excited and never wasted time in lost motion.

When the detective had gone, Perry Mason summoned Della Street into his office.

"Della," he said, "cancel every appointment that I've got. Hold everything wide open. Clear the decks for action."

She let her shrewd hazel eyes study him in calm appraisal.

"You know something?" she asked.

"Nothing much," he told her. "It's just a hunch. I think something's going to break."

"You mean in that Cartright case?"

He nodded.

"How about the money? Do you want that put in the bank?"

He nodded again. He arose from his chair and started pacing the office, with the restless stride of a lion pacing a cage.

"What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," he told her, "but things don't click."

"How do you mean they don't click?"

"They don't fit together. They look all right on the surface, except for a loose joint or two, but those loose joints are significant. There's something wrong."

"Have you any idea what it is?"

"Not yet, but I'm going to have."

She walked toward the outer office, paused in the door to flash him a solicitous glance. Her eyes were warm with affection.

He was pacing the floor back and forth, thumbs thrust in the armholes of his vest, head forward, eyes staring intently at the carpet.

Chapter 7

It was ten minutes before five when Perry Mason called Pete Dorcas on the telephone.

"Perry Mason talking, Pete. How do I stand with you?"

"Not very high," said Dorcas, but there was a trace of humor in his rasping, querulous voice. "You're too damned belligerent. Any time a fellow tries to do you a favor, he gets into trouble. You get too enthusiastic over your clients."

"I wasn't enthusiastic," said Mason; "I simply claimed the man wasn't crazy."

Dorcas laughed.

"Well," he said, "you're sure right on that. The man wasn't crazy. He played things pretty foxy."

"What are you doing about it; anything?"

"No. Foley came in here all steamed up. He wanted to get warrants issued right and left; wanted to turn the universe upside down, and then he wasn't so certain that he wanted the publicity. He asked me to wait until he communicated with me again."

"Well, did you hear from him later?"

"Yes, about ten minutes ago."

"What did he say?"

"Said that his wife had sent him a telegram from some little town down the state — Midwick, I think it was, begging him not to do anything that would bring about a lot of newspaper publicity. She said it wouldn't do him any good, and would do them all a lot of harm."

"What did you do?"

"Oh, the usual thing. I pigeonholed it. It's nothing except a man's wife running off with somebody else. They're free, white and twentyone, and know what they're doing. Of course, if they set up a meretricious relationship, openly and defiantly in some community, that will be a problem for that community to handle, but we can't spend a lot of time and money bringing some fellow's wife back to him when she doesn't want to come.

"Of course, he's got a good civil action against your client, Cartright, and the way Foley was talking this morning, he was going to file actions for alienation of affections, and everything else he could think of, but I have an idea he's changing his mind on that."