The Case of the Caretaker's Cat by Erle Stanley Gardner

apartment. A red-haired woman with quick, restless eyes, swift, nervous motions, and a well-modeled figure which was set off to advantage by her clothes, met them at the door of the apartment. Her face showed disappointment. "Oh," she said, "I was expecting… Who are you?"
    Paul Drake bowed, and said, "I'm Paul Drake. This is Mr. Mason, Miss DeVoe."
    "What is it you want?" she asked. Her speech was very rapid. The words seemed almost to run together.
    "We wanted to talk with you," Mason said.
    "About some employment," Paul Drake hastened to add. "You're a nurse, aren't you?"
    "Yes."
    "Well, we wanted to talk with you about some work."
    "What sort of a position?"
    "I think we could talk it over better if we stepped inside," Drake ventured.
    She hesitated a moment, looked up and down the corridor, then stepped back from the door and said, "Very well, you may come in, but only for a few minutes."
    The apartment was clean and well cared for as though she had just finished a careful housecleaning. Her hair was perfectly groomed. Her nails were well kept. She wore her clothes with the manner of one who is wearing her best.
    Drake sat down, relaxing comfortably, as though he intended to stay for hours.
    Mason sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair. He looked at the detective and frowned.
    "Now this employment may not be exactly the kind of a job you had in mind," Drake said, "but there's no harm talking it over. Would you mind telling me what your rates are by the day?"
    "Do you mean for two or three days, or…"
    "No, just one day."
    "Ten dollars," she said crisply.
    Drake took a billfold from his pocket. He extracted ten dollars but didn't at once pass it over to the nurse.
    "I have one day's employment," he said. "It won't take over an hour, but I'd be willing to pay for a full day."
    She wet her lips with the tip of a nervous tongue, glanced swiftly from Mason to Drake. Her voice showed suspicion. "Just what is the nature of this employment?" she asked.
    "We wanted you to recall a few facts," Drake said, folding the ten dollar bill about his fingers. "It would take perhaps ten or fifteen minutes for you to give us an outline, and then you could sit down and write out the facts you'd told us."
    Her voice was distinctly guarded now.
    "Facts about what?"
    The detective's glassy eyes watched her in expressionless appraisal. He pushed the ten dollar bill toward her. "We wanted to find out all you knew about Peter Laxter."
    She gave a start, staring from face to face in quick alarm, and said, "You're detectives!"
    Paul Drake's face registered the expression of a golfer who had just dubbed an approach shot.
    "Let's look at it this way," he said. "We're after certain information. We want to get the facts – we don't want anything except facts. We're not going to drag you into anything."
    She shook her head vehemently. "No," she said. "I was employed by Mr. Laxter as a nurse. It wouldn't be ethical for me to divulge any of his secrets."
    Perry Mason leaned forward and took a hand in the conversation. "The house was burned, Miss DeVoe?"
    "Yes, the house was burned."
    "And you were in it at the time?"
    "Yes."
    "How did the house burn – rather quickly?"
    "Quite quickly."
    "Have any trouble getting out?"
    "I was awake at the time. I smelled smoke and thought at first it was just smoke from an incinerator. Then I decided to investigate. I put on a robe and opened the door. The south end of the house was all in flames then. I screamed, and, after a few minutes… Well, I guess perhaps I shouldn't say anything more."
    "You knew the house was insured?" Mason asked.
    "Yes, I suppose so."
    "Do you know whether the insurance has been paid?"
    "Why, I think it has. I think it's been paid to Mr. Samuel Laxter. He's the executor, isn't he?"
    "Was there someone in that house you didn't like?" Mason asked. "Someone who was particularly obnoxious to you?"
    "Why, whatever makes you ask such a question as that?"
    "Whenever a fire occurs," Mason said