The Case of the Howling Dog

"I think," said Perry Mason slowly, "it would be better to stick to the theory that Arthur Cartright killed him, or that Thelma Benton killed him. The more I see of it, the more I'm inclined to concentrate on Thelma Benton."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because," he told her, "she's going to be a witness against you, and it's always a good move to show that a witness for the prosecution might be trying to pass the crime onto somebody else."

"You don't act as though you believed what I tell you," she said, "about the gun."

"I never believe anything that I can't make a jury believe," Perry Mason told her. "And I'm not certain that I can make a jury believe that story about the gun, if they also believe that you went there in a taxicab; that you saw your husband's dead body lying on the floor, and made no move to report to the police, but that you fled from the scene of the murder and tried to conceal your identity by taking a room under the name of Mrs. C. M. Dangerfield."

"I didn't want my husband to know I was in town."

"Why not?" he asked her.

"He was utterly cruel and utterly ruthless," she answered.

Perry Mason got to his feet and motioned to the attendant that the interview was over.

"Well," he said, "I'll think it over. In the meantime, write me a letter and tell me that you've been giving your case a great deal of thought, and that you want to tell your story to the newspaper reporters."

"But I've already told them that," she said.

"Never mind that," Perry Mason told her, as the matron appeared through the door leading from the jail. "I want you to put it in writing and send it to me."

"They'll censor it before it goes out of the jail?" she asked.

"Of course," he told her. "Goodby."

She stood staring at him until he had left the visitors' cage, her expression that of puzzled bewilderment.

The matron tapped her arm.

"Come," she said.

"Oh," sighed Bessie Forbes, "he doesn't believe me."

"What's that?" asked the matron.

"Nothing," said Mrs. Forbes, clamping her lip in a firm, straight line.

Perry Mason stepped into the telephone booth, dropped a coin and dialed the number of Paul Drake's detective bureau.

After a moment he heard Drake's voice on the line.

"Paul," he said, "Perry Mason talking. I'm going to shift my guns in that murder case a little."

"You don't need to shift them any; you've got them covering every point in the case now," Drake told him.

"You haven't seen anything yet," Mason remarked. "And I want you to concentrate on Thelma Benton. She's got an alibi that covers every minute of her time, from the time she left the house, until she got back. I want to find a hole in that alibi some place, if I can."

"I don't think there's any hole in it," Drake said. "I've checked it pretty thoroughly, and it seems to hold water. Now I've got some bad news for you."

"What is it?"

"The district attorney has found out about Ed Wheeler and George Doake, the two detectives who were watching Clinton Foley's house. They've got deputies out looking for them."

"They got wise to those birds through the taxi driver," Perry Mason said slowly.

"I guess so," said Drake.

"The deputies found them?"

"No."

"Are they likely to?"

"Not unless you want them to."

"I don't want them to," said Perry Mason. "Meet me at my office in ten minutes, and have all the reports on this Thelma Benton."

He heard Drake sigh over the telephone.

"You're getting this case all mixed up, brother," Drake told him.

Perry Mason laughed grimly.

"That's the way I want it," he said, and hung up the receiver.

Perry Mason caught a taxicab to his office, and found Paul Drake waiting for him with a sheaf of papers.

Mason nodded to Della Street, took Paul Drake's arm and piloted him into the inner office.

"All right, Paul," he said. "What have you found out?"

"There's only one weak point in the alibi," the detective said.

"What's that?"

"That's this fellow Carl Trask, the gambler who showed up in the Chevrolet and took Thelma Benton from the house. She was with him at various places until eight o'clock. I've checked the times when they showed at the various places. There's a gap between seventhirty and sevenfifty. Then they drifted into a speak and had a drink. Trask left shortly after eight o'clock, and the girl went to a booth and had dinner by herself. The waiter remembers her perfectly. She left about eightythirty, picked up a girl friend and went to a picture show. Her alibi is going to depend on Carl Trask's testimony from around seventhirty to sevenfifty, and on the girl friend from eightthirty on.

"But we don't care about busting the alibi after eightthirty. Between seventhirty and sevenfifty is the time you want to concentrate on, and from all I can find out, that's going to rest on Carl Trask's testimony, and, of course, that of Thelma Benton herself."

"Where does she claim she was?" Mason asked.

"She says she was down at another speak, having a cocktail, but nobody remembers her down there. That is, nobody has yet."