The Case of the Counterfeit Eye by Erle Stanley Gardner Page B

so good under the circumstances. Do you get me?"
    Mrs. Basset said slowly, "I get you."
    Feet pounded on the porch. Knuckles pounded imperatively against the door.
    She opened it, and two broad-shouldered men pushed their way into the room.
    "Okay," one of them said. "What's going on here?"
    "My husband," Mrs. Basset said, "has just committed suicide."
    "That wasn't the way we got it over the radio," one of the men said.
    "I'm sorry," she told him. "My son was hysterical. He was laboring under a misunderstanding. He didn't know what had happened."
    "Well," one of the men said, "what has happened?"
    She motioned toward the door.
    "How do you know it's suicide?" the other officer asked.
    "You can read the note he left in the typewriter."
    The men opened the door. One of them produced a flashlight and sent the beam slithering about the room. The other found a light switch, pressed the button and stood staring at the scene which was disclosed as the lights clicked on.
    "How long ago did you find him?" he asked.
    "About five minutes ago," Perry Mason said, answering the question.
    The men turned to him.
    "Who are you, buddy?" one of them asked.
    The other one gave a sudden start of recognition.
    "It's Perry Mason," he said, "the lawyer."
    Perry Mason bowed.
    "What are you doing here?" the first man asked.
    "Waiting for you to get done with the formalities in connection with this suicide," Perry Mason said, "so that I can discuss certain matters with Mrs. Basset."
    "How did you happen to be here?"
    "I came here to see Mr. Basset on business."
    "What kind of business?"
    "Not that it makes any difference," Perry Mason said, smiling affably, "but it had to do with the affairs of a young man who had been employed by Mr. Basset. There'd been some misunderstanding between them, and I wanted to get it straightened out."
    "Humph!" the officer said, and stood staring down at the corpse.
    "Anyone hear the pistol shot?"
    No one answered.
    "Evidently used the blanket and quilt to muffle the pistol shot," the officer said. "There's the gun that did the killing."
    Perry Mason followed the direction of his pointing finger. On the floor, in plain sight, lay a gun, a.38 caliber Colt, Police Positive, very apparently the gun which he had taken from young Basset.
    One of the officers stepped to the corpse, picked up a corner of the blanket and raised it.
    "Say, look here!" he called in an excited voice. "Here's another gun under this blanket. How the devil could a man commit suicide with two guns?"
    The second officer pushed the spectators toward the doorway.
    "Get out of here," he said, "and let me use the telephone. I'm calling the Homicide Squad."
    Mason stared at Mrs. Basset. "Two guns," he said. She made no answer. Her lips were bloodless, her eyes dark with terror.

Chapter Five
    THE witnesses sat in a huddled group in the outer office. The members of the Homicide Squad busied themselves in the death chamber.
    Perry Mason leaned toward Mrs. Basset.
    "What did you mean by planting that gun?" he whispered.
    "Will it make trouble?" she asked.
    "Of course, it'll make trouble. Why did you do it?"
    "Because," she said slowly, "there couldn't have been a suicide, without the gun being found there. I didn't think there was any gun. You know, we couldn't see any when we were in the room. We didn't move the blanket, and…"
    "But why," the lawyer demanded, "did you put that gun there?"
    "I had to," she said. "There had to be a gun there. Otherwise it wouldn't have looked like suicide. It would have looked like murder."
    "Don't ever kid yourself," Mason said grimly, "that it wasn't murder, and that was Dick's gun you left there."
    "I know," she said rapidly, "but that's all right. Dick and I fixed that all up. We'll say that Hartley borrowed the gun from him more than a week ago and that Dick hasn't seen it since."
    "But," Mason said, "the gun is empty. There couldn't have been a suicide with…"
    "Oh, no," she said. "I put shells in it before I left it