I'm reading the first Perry Mason novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws. It's from 1933. I've read it before.
The thing that stuck with me the first time is Della's personality. Something of her backstory is shared. The Street family had been wealthy and had lost everything. She takes a violent dislike to Perry's client, an apparently well-to-do young matron who is using an assumed name.
The thing that stuck with me the first time is Della's personality. Something of her backstory is shared. The Street family had been wealthy and had lost everything. She takes a violent dislike to Perry's client, an apparently well-to-do young matron who is using an assumed name.
"I hate everything she stands for!" said Della Street. "I've had to work for everything I got. I never got a thing in life that I didn't work for. And lots of times I've worked for things and have had nothing in return. That woman is the type that has never worked for anything in her life! She doesn't give a damned thing in return for what she gets. Not even herself!"
(Pocket Book edition, 1963, p. 13)
I'm just to the point where the police have been called in to begin their murder investigation. The victim was the husband of PM's client and Perry has come on the scene as his client's "friend." When he is chatting with in the kitchen with the housekeeper and her visiting daughter, a familiar phrase appears."I told them the same thing," she said, "that I saw nothing and heard nothing."
Norma Veitch giggled. "That's her story," she said, "and she sticks to it."
The mother snapped, "Norma!"
(p. 76)
The mother's outrage at her daughter's flippant remark interested me. What is the history of "that's my story and I'm sticking to it"? There must have been some unsavory association with it to cause Mrs. Veitch's flare up. Apparently it's how Aimee Semple McPherson responded to questions about her disappearance and claims of being kidnapped in the summer of 1926.
"If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit."