The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink
Erle Stanley Gardner
Pan Books, 1968
I’d never considered reading murder mysteries or crime thrillers of the trash/pulp-fiction variety until I was asked to review Mirror Mirror On The Wall by Stanley Ellin for cult poetry magazine Rising. The novel was gripping, easy to read, vividly written, and most importantly the plot was addictively good (with a brilliant final twist).
I vaguely started to keep half an eye out for similar tomes and struck gold when, on a trip to the sleepy village of Tetbury in the Cotswolds, I found a pristine and attractively sixties-looking Great Pan edition of The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink. I’d never read any Erle Stanley Gardner before, but the title was well-nigh irresistible.
If you’ve caught the most recent Perry Mason TV series one (very) slow afternoon, dismiss the memory immediately. Gone is the concerned avuncular square with a wardrobe straight out of M&S. Erle Stanley Gardner’s Mason is tall and sophisticated, smart, streetwise and tough. True, he’s almost always right – but then, he is the best defence attorney in LA.
What is so gripping is the incredible surge of plot action that begins halfway down the first page and doesn’t let up for a second until the crime is solved, pretty much on the last. It is about the unravelling of a curious mystery, and nothing more. Anything you might learn about the characters you do so incidentally as the plot rolls onward. This electric pace is driven by dialogue that is quick-fire and intense, yet believable and engaging. You feel as if you’re in the room, desperately trying to keep up, then rushing out into the street after the characters as they pursue their leads.This case all starts when Mason and his chic and very capable secretary, Miss Della Street, go for a late dinner at a restaurant where they are clearly regulars. They’re exhausted after spending the whole day squeezing a deposition out of a tricksy witness. The last thing they need is another problem, but Mason’s curiosity often gets him in trouble; seems the owner, Morris Alburg, has something on his mind: ‘“I got troubles,” the proprietor said with a sigh. “I guess we all got troubles.”’
Mason can’t resist and asks for the full story. A new waitress that Morris has hired, one Dixie Dayton, has done a runner, leaving behind a much-needed pay cheque, an exquisite (if moth-eaten) mink coat (that Mason and Della take away with them), and a lot of hungry customers.
Morris thinks she’s on the low and is worried about the police. Sure enough, at the end of dinner they arrive and they bring more news. It turns out that when Dixie fled, she ran out into a little alley behind the restaurant and ‘“somebody tried to make her get in a car […] She wouldn’t do it. The guy had a gun. He took two shots at her. She started to run, got as far as the street and was hit by a car …”’
Suddenly, the plot has thickened and as Mason cannot resist a mystery and Morris literally begs him to be his lawyer if need be, he’s soon embroiled in a new and typically complex case.
New evidence keeps appearing: why is there a Seattle pawn ticket sewn into the lining of the mink coat? Who is the mysterious lone diner that Perry spots studiously ignoring the police’s arrival, and inconspicuously trying to gulp down his food so he can get the hell out? And what has it all got to do with the tragic death of a talented young cop? And then another man is found dead.
Like all the best maverick crime solvers, Mason is always at loggerheads with the police, and in this case it’s Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide whom he comes up against. Their conversations are typically terse; irritable, yet laced with respect and caution:
Tragg inspected the end of the cigar to see that it was burning evenly, gave Mason a grin and said, ‘You know, Counsellor, I like you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘That’s where the trouble comes in.’
‘What trouble?’
‘My trouble. There are those down in the department who don’t like you.’
‘No?’
‘No. They think you’re on the other side of the law.’ Mason said, ‘The law gives a man the right to have counsel and …’
‘Save it,’ Tragg said. ‘Some day a -luncheon club may want you to make a speech and I’d hate to have you use up all your material.’
‘I’m just rehearsing.’
‘You don’t need rehearsal. […] What about the fur coat?’
‘What fur coat?’
‘The one Della wore out of the restaurant last night.’
Mason turned to Della Street with mock sternness. ‘Della, have you been shoplifting again?’
She nodded, contritely. ‘I can’t help it, Chief.’
The poker-faced humour is there throughout and is a good device to keep the short beat, near-terse dialogue in shape as we head, inevitably, to the courtroom finale. Unfortunately, this scene is the only point at which I was reminded of the TV series. Mainly because everyone suddenly becomes at best dim-witted and slow, at worst exceptionally thick – except Mason, of course, who’s got it all figured out.
Perry Mason is an intensely likeable hero on the page. We don’t learn anything about his personal life, or suffer any trite examination of his self by digging deep into a damaged psyche. No way. He is practical, sharp, and perceptive; he uses logic and intelligence whilst elsewhere, fools rush in. He carries it off with a good dry wit; plus he’s got a gorgeous acerbic secretary side-kick whom he’s far too well-mannered to even leer at.
Essentially, he’s got it all sewn up … until the next case, that is …
