The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece

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Perry Mason paced back and forth across his office, thumbs hooked through the armholes of his vest, forehead puckered into a frown.

“You said two o’clock, Jackson?” he asked his law clerk.

“Yes, sir, and I told her to be prompt.”

Mason consulted his wristwatch.

“Fifteen minutes late,” he said irritably.

Della Street, his secretary, looking up from the page of a ledger, asked, “Why not refuse to see her?”

Mason said, “Because I want to see her. A lawyer has to wade through a lot of uninteresting murders to get something exciting. This case is a natural. I want it.”

“Can murder ever be uninteresting?” Jackson asked.

“After you have had so many of them,” Mason said. “Dead men are always uninteresting. It’s the live ones who count.”

Della Street, watching Mason with solicitous eyes, observed, “This isn’t a murder case — yet.”

“It’s just as fascinating,” Mason said. “I don’t like being called in after the facts have crystallized. I like to deal with motives and hatreds. Murder’s the supreme culmination of hatred, just as marriage is the supreme culmination of love. And after all, hatred’s more powerful than love.”

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