Free The Case of the Counterfeit Eye by Erle Stanley Gardner Page A

follow my advice, you've made a poor guess and thrown away fifteen hundred dollars backing it. I'll be in my office for ten minutes. If you don't stop to shave, you can make it."
    Perry Mason dropped the receiver back on the hook without waiting for Brunold to make any further comments.
    Della Street looked at him, speculatively, and said, "Is he in a mess?"
    "I'll say he is. Hartley Basset was murdered tonight. He was holding a bloodshot glass eye clutched in his hand when they found the body."
    "But, does Brunold know Basset?"
    "That's what I want to find out."
    "He should be in the clear," she said slowly. "He complained of the loss of the eye this morning."
    Mason stared at the six bloodshot eyes which glowered so redly up at him, and nodded his head slowly.
    "It's a point," he said, "to take into consideration. But don't overlook this fact: Harry McLane worked for Basset. Brunold was acquainted with Harry McLane. Where did Brunold and Harry McLane get acquainted? Did the McLanes come here by accident, or did Brunold send them?"
    "Whom are we representing?" she inquired.
    "Brunold, for one," he said, "Miss McLane, for another, perhaps Mrs. Basset."
    "How was the murder committed?" she asked.
    "So it might have looked like a suicide, but it was pretty clumsy. Then Mrs. Basset complicated things by planting a gun. A quilt and a blanket had been used to muffle the sound of the shot. One gun was under them. Mrs. Basset – planted a second gun. She, said it was because she didn't see the first gun, and she wanted the thing to look like a suicide."
    "Well?" Della Street asked.
    "Well," Mason said, "that may have been it, or it may have been that she knew the concealed gun hadn't been the one that did the shooting, and she realized the police would check it up by comparing bullets."
    "Did she leave finger-prints on the second gun?" Della Street asked.
    "Yes," Mason said, "hers and mine."
    "Yours!"
    "Yes."
    "How did yours get on it?"
    "I took the gun away from Dick Basset, her son."
    "And then gave it to her?"
    "Yes."
    "Gee, Chief, do you suppose that was a play to get your finger-prints on the gun?"
    "I can't tell, yet."
    She pursed her lips and whistled silently. After a moment she said, "Can you tell me all about it?"
    "I got a call about midnight to rush out to Basset's place. Mrs. Basset told me her son, Dick, was threatening to kill her husband. I stalled around for a while, but she made it sound urgent, so I went.
    "When I got there, this Fenwick woman was lying on the couch, apparently unconscious. Mrs. Basset said Hartley Basset had hit her. Dick Basset had a gun. I took the gun. They said the woman was Dick's wife, but the marriage mustn't be mentioned. A redheaded woman about fifty, probably a servant, was putting wet towels on the girl's head. Dick Basset was talking big.
    "I figured Mrs. Basset wanted a divorce; that her husband would deny hitting the girl, in a divorce court, but he might have a hard time withstanding the rough treatment of two detectives who wanted the facts, so I put in a call for the cops.
    "Then the girl came to, and said Basset hadn't hit her but that a masked man, with an empty eye-socket, had slugged her. She'd pulled off the mask and seen the man's face, but because the room was half dark, and light was coming through the doorway, he hadn't seen hers. She said he was a stranger to her. He socked her. The mask was a piece of black carbon paper with two holes in it for eyes. It had evidently been held in place by putting a hat brim down over it. The Fenwick girl ripped the mask off. The pieces that had been torn out were in Basset's private office on the desk.
    "Mrs. Basset claims she saw a man running out of the door and driving away in the Basset car. She claims it was her husband, Hartley Basset.
    "Naturally, after the Fenwick girl tells her story, I explore the other room. We find Hartley Basset lying dead, like I've told you. I find a chap by the name of Colemar, a weak-kneed, mouse-like