"By God, you've got to know."

Mason made an unsuccessful attempt at a smoke ring. "The air's too churned up," he explained to Paul Drake in an audible aside. "It's hard to blow them when there are too many people in the room."

Sergeant Holcomb pounded his fist on Mason's desk. "By God," he said, "the day is past when you criminal attorneys can play tag with the law. You know what they're doing now to people who harbor public enemies."

"Is Douglas Keene a public enemy?" Mason asked innocently.

"He's a murderer."

"Indeed! Whom did he murder?"

"Two people. Charles Ashton and Edith DeVoe."

Perry Mason's tongue made clicking noises against the roof of his mouth. "He shouldn't have done that, Sergeant," he said.

One of the reporters snickered audibly. Holcomb's face darkened. "Go ahead and crack wise," he said, "all you want to, but I'm going to get you for aiding a fugitive from justice."

"Is he a fugitive from justice?"

"He most certainly is."

"He's going to surrender at five o'clock tonight," Mason said, taking another drag at his cigarette.

"We'll catch him before that."

"Where is he?" Mason asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I don't know," Sergeant Holcomb bellowed. "If I did I'd go pick him up."

Mason sighed, turned to Paul Drake and said, apologetically, "He's going to put his hands on Keene before five o'clock tonight, yet he insists he doesn't know where Keene is. I've offered to surrender him at five o'clock and yet he won't believe I don't know where he is. It isn't logical."

"You wouldn't promise to have that man in custody by five o'clock unless you knew where he was right now. And you're working out some scheme to beat the case while you've got him under cover," Holcomb accused.

Mason smoked in silence.

"You're a lawyer. You know what the penalty is for becoming an accessory after the fact. You know what happens to people who give aid to murderers."

"But," Mason pointed out patiently, "suppose it should turn out he wasn't a murderer, Holcomb?"

"Wasn't a murderer!" Holcomb almost screamed. "Wasn't a murderer? Why, do you know what the evidence is against that boy? He went out to see Charles Ashton. He was the last man to see Ashton alive. Now get this and get it straight. Ashton had a cat. The cat slept on Ashton's bed. Douglas Keene went out to get that cat; and he got the cat. Witnesses saw him when he entered the room, and saw him leaving the place with the cat in his arms.

"Now Ashton was murdered before the cat left the place. The cat had jumped in through the window. There were tracks on the bed where the cat had walked up and down. There was even a cat track squarely in the middle of Ashton's forehead, proving that the murder was committed before Keene left with the cat. Ashton was killed after ten o'clock and before eleven. Keene was there in Ashton's room shortly before ten and stayed there until he left with the cat after eleven."

Mason, pursing his lips, said, "That would make quite a case against Douglas Keene, if you were certain it was Ashton's cat he carried away."

"Of course it was Ashton's cat. Witnesses saw him, I tell you. The housekeeper saw him. She wasn't sleeping well. She was looking out her window when Keene left. She saw him with the cat in his arms. James Brandon, the chauffeur, was driving a car to the garage. He turned in the driveway, and the headlights hit Douglas Keene squarely. He'll swear Keene was carrying the cat."

"You mean Clinker?"

"I mean Clinker, if that's the cat's name."

"Under those circumstances," Mason said, "the weight a jury would give the testimony of these people would depend upon their ability to convince the jury of the identity of the cat. Where's the cat now, by the way, Sergeant?"

"I don't know," Sergeant Holcomb said, then added, significantly, "Do you?"

Perry Mason said slowly, "I don't think, Sergeant, there's any law in the Penal Code against giving shelter to a cat, is there? You're not by any chance accusing the cat of the murder, are you?"

"Go ahead and crack wise," Sergeant Holcomb said. "Do you know what I'm doing here? Do you know the real purpose of my coming here?"

Mason raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

Holcomb, pounding the desk with his fist, said, "I came here to tell you that Douglas Keene was wanted for murder. I came here to tell you that we're getting a warrant out for Douglas Keene's arrest. I came here to tell you the evidence against Douglas Keene so that if you continue to conceal Douglas Keene, we can have you convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude and have you disbarred. That's why I'm here. I'm going to tell you all of the evidence. When I leave here you're never going to be able to tell a jury or the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association you didn't know Douglas Keene was wanted for murder and that you didn't know the evidence that was against him."

"Rather shrewd, Sergeant," Perry Mason said. "In fact, it's very shrewd. You're closing the door to any possible defense that I might have, is that it?"

"That's exactly it. You're either going to turn up Douglas Keene, or you're going to be arrested, prosecuted, and eventually disbarred."

"Have you," Mason asked, "entirely finished? Have you told me all the evidence?"

"No. I haven't even told you half of it."

"And I take it, Sergeant, that you intend to tell me all."

"You're damn right I intend to tell you all."

Mason inclined his head in the receptive attitude of one who is about to listen intently. But Sergeant Holcomb's voice filled every corner of the office, seemed to rattle back from the windows.

"Edith DeVoe wanted to see Douglas Keene. She telephoned and left messages for him at several places. Douglas Keene went to call on her. The manager of Edith DeVoe's apartment house happened to be leaving the house just as Douglas Keene was pressing his finger against the button which rang Edith DeVoe's bell. When the manager opened the door, Keene took advantage of it by walking in. The manager naturally stopped him and asked him where he was going. Keene said he was going to see Miss DeVoe; that she had sent for him.

"Later on the district attorney went to question her. She was lying on the floor unconscious. She'd been literally clubbed to death. We went to Douglas Keene's room. We found that garments he had worn were bloodstained. There was blood on his shirt, on his collar, on his shoes, on his trousers. He had tried to wash out the bloodstains and failed. He'd tried to burn up some of his clothes and had even failed to do that. Shreds of cloth were left in the ashes, and they gave a chemical reaction which shows there was human blood on them."

"Was the cat there?" Mason asked.

Holcomb controlled himself with an effort. "No, the cat wasn't there."

"Just how would one make an absolute identification of a cat?" Perry Mason asked. "There's no way of fingerprinting a cat, is there, Sergeant?"

"Go ahead," Holcomb said grimly, "be as smart as you want to. You're a lawyer making his living defending murderers. Two months from now you'll be disbarred. You'll be walking the streets."

"So far," Mason remarked, "I haven't defended murderers. I have only defended persons accused of murder. You must appreciate, Sergeant, that there's quite a difference. But I'm serious about the cat, Sergeant. Suppose the housekeeper and the chauffeur should both swear Keene was carrying Clinker in his arms; and suppose I should line up a couple of dozen Persian cats in front of the witnesses and ask them to pick out Clinker. Do you suppose they could do it, and in the event they pick out one cat and swear that it was Clinker, do you suppose there's any way by which we could definitely establish to the jury that they were right?"

"So that's your game, is it?" Holcomb asked.