"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he pleaded, his voice half muffled by his cut and rapidly swelling lips.
Perry Mason elevated his feet to the desk, tilted back in his swivel chair and puffed complacently at his cigarette, watching the melee with whimsical humor.
Abruptly, Oafley stepped back. "I'm sorry, Sam," he said. "I forgot your arm was hurt."
Shuster bobbed up between them, a palm against the vest of each, trying to push them apart. The men, breathing hard, paid no attention to his futile efforts, but stood staring at each other.
"Don't worry about my arm," Sam Laxter said bitterly, then glanced at the bandage. It showed a red stain where the wound had been reopened.
"Come away, come away," Shuster said; "he's full of tricks. He's clever. Didn't I warn you before I came in here?"
Oafley said slowly, his chest heaving, his face flushed, "Just keep your tongue off Edith, that's all."
He turned abruptly, crossed the office, jerked open the corridor door. Shuster hesitated a moment, then ran after him, shouting, "Mr. Oafley! Mr. Oafley! Come back here a moment, Mr. Oafley!"
Oafley called back over his shoulder, "You can go to hell. I'm going to get a lawyer of my own."
Shuster looked at Sam Laxter with an expression of consternation on his face, then turned to Perry Mason. "You did it!" he screamed. "You did it deliberately! You turned these men one against the other. You put suspicion in their minds. You made an issue out of Edith DeVoe. You…"
"Close the door," Perry Mason interrupted in a calm tone of voice, "as you leave."
Shuster put his hand through Sam Laxter's arm.
"Come," he said. "The law gives us our remedy."
Sam Laxter said bitterly. "He'll get a lawyer and try to pin Granddad's murder on me. What a sweet mess that is."
Shuster pushed him through the door.
"Don't forget to close the door," Mason called.
Shuster banged the door shut with a force which threatened to pull the wall down. The effect of the slam was still shivering the pictures on the walls when Della Street opened the door from the outer office.
"Did you do that on purpose?" she asked.
Mason, smoking calmly, said with a detached air, "There was no sense having both of them support Shuster. As a matter of fact, their interests are adverse. They should have realized it. If Shuster is representing one of them, the other will get another lawyer. That'll mean two lawyers fighting, and that'll be a break for Douglas Keene."
She sighed, as a mother sighs who is confronted by a hopelessly naughty child, then suddenly laughed. "Well," she said, "I got it all down, even including the sound of the blows. Winifred Laxter is in the outer office. She's got a cat with her."
"A cat?" Mason asked.
"Yes, a Persian cat."
Mason's eyes were twinkling as he said, "Tell her to come in."
"And that was true about the police getting the cat from my place," she said. "They told the manager they had to search my apartment. They got a passkey from her."
"Did they have a warrant?" Mason asked.
"I don't think so."
Mason, smoking his cigarette, said thoughtfully, "It puts you in something of a hole, Della. I'm sorry I didn't think they'd look out there. Sergeant Holcomb is getting better and better—or worse and worse—whichever you want to call it."
"Why does he hate you so much?"
"Simply because he thinks I'm shielding murderers. He's all right; he's just zealous. I don't blame him. And you must admit my manner toward him is a little irritating at times."
"I'll say it is."
Mason looked up at her and grinned. "Purposely irritating," he said. "Send Winifred in, and wait in your office. You might listen in."
She opened the door and beckoned. Winifred Laxter entered, a big gray Persian cat on her arm. Her chin was up, her eyes defiant. There was a pugnacious set to her head.
Perry Mason looked her over with amused tolerance.
"Sit down," he told her.
"I lied to you," she said, standing by the side of the desk.
"About the cat?" he asked, looking at the Persian.
She nodded. "That cat wasn't Clinker—this is Clinker."
"Why did you lie to me?"
"I telephoned Uncle Charles, the caretaker, you know, and told him I wanted him to get rid of Clinker, that I wanted him to let me keep Clinker. He refused. So then I suggested as a next best thing that we could fool Sam Laxter into thinking he'd parted with Clinker. I told him to keep Clinker under cover and I'd send Douglas Keene out with another cat that would look like Clinker. He could use this other cat as a double and let it be very much in evidence, then, if Sam was going to poison any cat, he'd poison the other cat. Don't you see?"
Perry Mason, watching her shrewdly, said, "Sit down and tell me about it."
Her eyes were apprehensive. "Do you believe me?"
"Let's hear the rest of it."
She sat down on the edge of the overstuffed leather chair. The cat struggled to free itself. She held it tightly, smoothing the fur of its forehead, scratching it behind the ears.
"Go on," Mason said.
When she saw that the cat was quiet once more, she said, "Douglas Keene went out there. He took the cat out with him. He waited for some little time for Ashton to show up. Then, he came back to me for instructions. He left the cat with me."
"Why did you tell me that cat was Clinker?"
"Because I was afraid other people would say Douglas had taken Clinker with him, and I wanted to see if you thought that would be too serious. In other words, I wanted to get your reactions."
Mason was laughing now. The cat squirmed restlessly.
"Oh, for goodness sake," Mason said, "let the cat down. Where did you get him?"
She stared steadily at him and then said defiantly, "I don't know what you're talking about. This cat is Clinker. He's very much attached to me."
The cat jumped to the floor.
"It would be a good story," Mason said with a voice that was almost judicial in its complete detachment. "It would help me out of a jam and it would be a swell out for Della Street. The cats sure look alike. But you couldn't get away with it. They'd find out sooner or later where you got the cat. There might be a big difference of opinion as to whether it was Clinker or wasn't Clinker. But in the long run it would put you on a spot, and you're not going to get put on a spot."
"But it is Clinker. I went out there and found him. He'd been frightened to death—poor cat—all the noise and excitement and finding his master dead, and everything…"
"No," Mason told her, "I'm not going to let you do it, and that's final. I suppose the papers are on the street and you've read that the police found Clinker in my secretary's apartment."
"They found the cat they thought was Clinker.