Forgotten Books: THE CASE OF THE VELVET CLAWS by Erle Stanley Gardner (1933)

Perry Mason books are the potato chips of mystery fiction. It’s damn near impossible to read just one.

The first time I read TCOT Velvet Claws—the first in the series—thirty-odd years ago, I got hooked and went on to read the whole dang thing. 82 books. Do I want to do that again? I don’t know. Will I be able to resist? We’ll see.

If you’re only acquainted with Perry from the TV series, or later books in the series, the guy in this book might surprise you. He doesn’t carry a gun—his gun is the law—but he’d have been tough enough to walk the pages of Black Mask, had Erle Stanley Gardner chosen to send him there. Gardner, in fact, was the number one contributor to that fabled magazine, making 103 appearances. (Raoul Whitfield came in second with 90, while Fredrick Nebel had 67, Carroll John Daly 60 and Dashiell Hammett 45).

When his client asks what sets him apart from other attorneys, Perry puts it into two words: “I fight.” And he means it. “I’m a paid gladiator,” he elaborates later. “I fight for my clients.”

After an unpleasant conversation with the editor of a blackmail sheet, the editor says, “Well, there’s no hard feelings.” Perry’s answer? “The hell there ain’t.”

After an equally unpleasant conversation with the editor’s boss, the boss tells his butler, “Take a good look at this man, Digley. If you ever see him on the place again, throw him out. Call a cop if you have to.” Perry’s response? “Better call two cops, Digley. You might need ‘em.”

When a “reporter” for the blackmail sheet tries to “interview” Mason, we get this little exchange:

     Slowly, deliberately, Perry Mason took his hand from the automobile door catch, turned around on his heel, and surveyed the man.

     “So,” he said, “that’s the kind of tactics you folks are going to use, is it?”

     Crandall continued to stare with his impudent eyes.

     “Don’t get hard,” he said, “because it won’t buy you anything.”

     “The hell it won’t,” said Perry Mason. “He measured the distance, and slammed a straight left full into the grinning mouth. Crandall’s head shot back. He staggered two steps, then went down like a sack of meal.

Throughout the book, Perry is violence in motion. He slams door, slams down telephone receivers, and even drives savagely. Dealing with blackmailers, he’s not above doing a little blackmailing himself. And his dedication to his client is almost suicidal. Even after she tries to frame him for the murder—then subsequently confesses—he insists on defending her.

But when she tries to vamp him, it’s another story:

     “Somehow,” she says, “you inspire me with confidence. You’re the only man I ever knew who could stand up to my husband. I feel as though I could cling to you and you’d protect me.”

     She tilted her face so that her lips were close to his, and her eyes were staring into his. Her body was quite close to his.

     He took her elbow in long, strong fingers and turned her away from him.

     “I’ll protect you,” he said, “just as long as you pay cash.”

This Della Street isn’t the one we meet on TV, either. She distrusts Mason’s client right from the start, and provides the book’s title:

     “I hate her!” Della Street said fervently. “I wish you’d never seen her. She isn’t worth the money. If we made ten times as much money out of it, she still wouldn’t be worth it. I told you just what she was—all velvet and claws!”

And it seems Della is more than just a secretary. Near the end he scoops her up in his arms and plants a smooch on her lips, smearing his face with lipstick. When his client walks in, suggesting he wipe the lipstick off his mouth, Perry says, “That lipstick can stay there.”

It’s that kind of stuff that make these books so hard to resist, and Gardner makes it even tougher by cleverly introducing the client of the next book, The Case of the Sulky Girl, in the final pages of this one. Looks like I’m doomed to repeat myself.