The Case of the Howling Dog

"You don't need to worry about that girl," he said, "she's back at the office. She telephoned in a little while ago to see if I'd heard anything from you, and I told her you'd sent in an S O S to pull the shadows off the Foley house, and that I thought it was something important, so she said she was coming down to the office and stick around awhile."

Perry Mason nodded his head slowly.

"That," he said, "is the kind of cooperation that counts."

The telephone rang again. Drake picked up the receiver, said, "Hello," listened for a moment, then nodded to Perry Mason.

"The boys have located that cab driver, Perry," he said. "They haven't talked with him yet, but they've found out from the main office where he is. He just checked in with a report."

"Tell the boys to go and hire the cab; to take it to my office and bring the driver up with them. Make some excuse to bring him up. Tell him they've got a trunk or a suitcase to bring down — anything to get him up there. And tell 'em to do it right away."

Drake nodded, transmitted Mason's instructions over the telephone, hung up and looked at Mason.

"What's next?" he asked. "Do we go up to your office and wait?"

Perry Mason nodded.

Chapter 11

The cab driver fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair, glanced at Perry Mason, then let his eyes slither away to the faces of the two detectives, then looked at Della Street.

Della Street, perched on the edge of a chair, knees crossed, notebook held open on the desk, smiled reassuringly at him.

"What's the idea?" the driver asked.

"Just want to find out some information from you," said Mason. "We're collecting some evidence in connection with a case."

"What sort of a case?" asked the driver.

Mason nodded to Della Street, and she touched her pen to the notebook, streaming off a series of cabalistic signs from the point of the pen.

"The case," said Perry Mason slowly, "was a case involving a neighborhood fight over a howling dog. It seems to have developed into complications. We don't know yet just how serious those complications are. I want you to understand that the questions I am about to ask you deal only with the neighborhood fight over the howling dog, and the resulting charges which were made back and forth."

The cab driver settled back in the chair.

"Suits me," he said. "My meter's running downstairs."

"That's all right," Mason told him. "You get paid for the meter, and you get five dollars on top of it. How does that satisfy you?"

"It will when I get the five dollars," the driver said.

Mason opened a drawer in the desk, took out a five dollar bill and passed it across to the driver.

The cabbie pocketed the money and grinned.

"Now then," he said, "go ahead and shoot."

"Around sevenfifteen, or perhaps a little earlier, you picked up a passenger who had you take her to 4889 Milpas Drive," said Perry Mason.

"So that's it, eh?" said the cab driver.

"That's it," Mason said.

"What do you want to know about it?"

"What did the woman look like?"

"Gee, chief, that's hard to tell. I remember she had on a black fur, and she had some peculiar kind of perfume. She left a handkerchief in the car, and I smelled it. I was going to turn the handkerchief in to the Lost and Found Department, if she didn't say something about claiming it."

"How tall was she?" asked Perry Mason.

The driver shrugged his shoulders.

"Can't you give us any idea?"

The driver looked around him with a bewildered air. Perry Mason nodded to Della Street. "Stand up, Della," he said.

The girl stood up.

"Tall as this girl?" Mason asked.

"Just about the same build," the driver said, looking Della Street over with appreciative eyes. "She wasn't as pretty as this girl, and she may have been a little heavier."

"You remember the color of her eyes?"

"No, I don't. I thought they were black, but maybe they were brown. She had a peculiar voice. I remember she talked funny. She talked in a highpitched voice, and talked fast."

"You don't remember very much about her, then?" said Mason.

"Not too much, boss. She was the type of woman that you wouldn't — that is, that I wouldn't. You know how it is. There's lots of Janes gets in a cab and starts getting friendly right away. Well, she wasn't the kind that got friendly. Then there's lots of Janes that get in a cab and are on the make. They usually come through with some kind of a business proposition. This Jane wasn't on the make."

"Notice her hands? Did she have any rings on?"

"She had black gloves," said the cab driver positively. "I remember because she had some trouble fumbling around in her purse."

"All right, you took her there, and then what did you do?"

"I took her there, and she told me to watch her until I saw her get into the house. Then I was to go some place to a public telephone and telephone a number and deliver a message."

"Go ahead," Mason said, "what was the number and what was the message?"

"It was a funny message."

"Did she write it out?"

"No, she just told me and made me repeat it twice, so that I'd get it straight."

"All right, go ahead; what was it?"