The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece by Erle Stanley Gardner Page B

my private papers, I'll have you arrested. I might have known that Kent would resort to any underhanded tactics. He poses as a big-hearted, magnanimous individual, but it's all pose with him. Dig below the surface, and you'll find out just what a damn skunk he is."
    Mason said in a low voice, "How about Mrs. Fogg, Maddox – is she a skunk, too?"
    Maddox's face showed sudden dismay. After a moment he said, "So you know about her?"
    "Yes."
    "And that's what you came to see me about?"
    "On the contrary," Mason said, "we came to call you for breakfast. Come on, let's go."
    "Wait a minute."
    Maddox thrust his feet out from under the covers, groped for his slippers. "About this Fogg business, Mason, don't believe everything you hear. There are two sides to that."
    "Yes," Mason remarked, "and there are two sides to a piece of hot toast. Right now I'm interested in both of them. We'll discuss the Fogg matter later."
    He led the way from the room, holding the door open until the others had stepped into the corridor, then pulling the door shut behind him with a bang. "What's the Fogg case?" Edna Hammer asked.
    "An ace I was keeping up my sleeve; but when he started making a fuss I had to play it. He'll be a good dog now."
    "But what is it?" she asked. "If it concerns Uncle Pete, I…"
    "While we're here," Mason said, "I think we may just as well take a complete census."
    "What do you mean?"
    "Let's just make certain none of the others are – indisposed. Who sleeps here?"
    "Mr. Duncan."
    Mason pounded his knuckles on the door. A booming voice said suspiciously, "Who is it?"
    Mason smiled at Dr. Kelton and said, "Notice the legal training, Jim. When I knocked at your door you opened it. When I knock at a lawyer's door he wants to know who it is."
    "Perhaps he's hardly presentable to ladies," Dr. Kelton pointed out, but Duncan, fully dressed, even to his necktie and scarf pin, flung open the door, saw who it was, and glowered at them in belligerent appraisal.
    "Well," he asked, "what do you want?"
    "First call for breakfast," Mason told him.
    "Is this," Duncan asked, adjusting his spectacles, and raising his head so that he could regard them through the lower part of the bifocals, "a new innovation which Mr. Kent has instituted?"
    "You may consider it such," Mason replied, turning away from the door.
    "This room," he asked Edna, "is, I suppose, where your Uncle Phil sleeps." He indicated the door before which she had first paused.
    "Yes. Maddox slept there until last night, then Uncle Phil changed with him."
    "Well," he said, "let's call your Uncle Phil."
    He tapped on the panels. There was no answer, and he tapped more loudly. Duncan, who had been standing in his doorway, came striding out into the corridor and said, "What's the big idea?"
    Mason, his face showing a puzzled expression, pounded loudly with his knuckles, turned the knob, opened the door and entered the room. Mason took a single step toward the bed, whirled around, blocked the others in the doorway, and said to Dr. Kelton, "Get that girl out of here."
    "What's the matter?" Edna Hammer asked, and then, as she interpreted his silence, screamed.
    Duncan, pushing importantly into the room, said, "What's the trouble here? What's happening?"
    Maddox, attired in pajamas and slippers, shuffled along the corridor until he joined the group in the doorway. Dr. Kelton, taking Edna Hammer by the arm and pushing her from the room, remarked to the other two, "Just keep out, please." Duncan's big paunch blocked the doorway. Dr. Kelton, also heavily fleshed, but not as big in the stomach, pushed up against Duncan. "Let the woman out," he said.
    Duncan shoved. "I've got a right to know what's happening here," he said.
    "Let the woman out," Dr. Kelton repeated.
    Duncan cleared his throat, continued to shove. Dr. Kelton, slightly lowering his shoulder, braced himself, gave a heave, sent Duncan staggering backwards. Edna Hammer, sobbing into her handkerchief, left the room. Duncan, recovering