The Case of the Horrified Heirs (17 page)

"But I didn't leave the motel," she said.

Mason said, "They picked up some glass at the place where the car had been crowded over the road. There were fragments of a glass headlight. Then the police went up to the motel where I ran into you with my car and examined the glass up there. They found a piece that had broken out of your headlight. The broken piece fits exactly into the lens on your headlight. Then the broken piece of glass that they found down where Lauretta Trent was crowded off the road also fits into the piece of glass that came out of that same headlight. By putting the whole thing together, they have patched up the glass fragments like a jigsaw puzzle and have virtually everything. There is only one small, triangular piece of glass that is missing."

"But that chauffeur," Virginia Baxter said, "why should they believe him when he did all those things?"

"That," Mason said, "is something I don't understand myself. You told them about the chauffeur?"

"Of course."

"About his wanting to bribe you to forge a copy of the will?"

"Yes."

"And about the way you made the carbon copies and mailed them to yourself?"

"Yes. I told them everything, Mr. Mason. I realize now that I shouldn't have, but once I started talking-well, I was just… I was just scared stiff. I wanted so desperately to convince them and have them turn me loose."

Abruptly, the door opened. District Attorney Hamilton Burger, accompanied by Lieutenant Tragg, entered the room.

"Good morning, Virginia," Hamilton Burger said.

He turned to Perry Mason. "Hi, Perry. How's everything this morning?"

"How are you, Hamilton?" Mason said. "You going to turn my client loose?"

"I'm afraid not," Burger said.

"Why not?"

"She told us quite a story about George Eagan, the chauffeur for Lauretta Trent," Hamilton Burger said. "It was a nice story, but we don't believe it.

"Lauretta Trent's relatives told us quite a story about the chauffeur. It's a plausible story but it doesn't check out in some details. We're beginning to think that your client may be tied in with Lauretta Trent's relatives, trying to discredit Eagan and obscure the issues; incidentally, covering up attempts they have made at committing murder-a murder which was actually consummated by your client."

"Why, that's absurd," Virginia exclaimed. "I never met Lauretta Trent's relatives in my life."

"Perhaps," Mason said, "if you wouldn't be so hypnotized by an act put on by that chauffeur, you might have a clearer understanding of the situation."

"Well, we'll see about that," Burger said.

He stepped to the door, opened it and said to someone outside, "Come in."

The man who entered was in his forties. He had a shock of coal-black hair, dark complexion, high cheekbones, and intense black eyes.

He shifted his eyes from Hamilton Burger to look directly at Virginia Baxter, then shook his head emphatically.

"Have you ever seen this young woman before?" Burger asked the man.

"No," he said, shortly.

"There you are," Burger said, turning to Virginia.

"Well, that's nothing," she said. "I've never seen him before either. He looks in a general way like the Trent chauffeur, but he's not the man who called on me."

"This," Lieutenant Tragg announced dryly, "is George Eagan, the chauffeur for Lauretta Trent… That's all, George, you may go now."

He turned to Mason and said, "George hit his head when he tumbled out of that automobile. He was unconscious for an undetermined length of time."

"Now, just a minute," Mason said. "Just a minute. Don't pull that stuff with me. If he's able to be out walking around and come here to identify, or fail to identify, my client, he can answer a question."

"He doesn't have to," Hamilton Burger said.

Mason ignored the district attorney's comment, said to the chauffeur, "You have a private automobile. It's an Olds and the license number is ODT062."

Eagan looked at Mason with surprise. "That's my license number," he said, "but it isn't an Olds, it's a Cadillac."

"You were driving your automobile day before yesterday?" Mason asked.

Eagan looked at him with a puzzled expression on his face, then slowly shook his head. "I was chauffeuring Mrs. Trent. We drove up to Fresno."

Burger said, "That's all, George. You don't need to answer any more questions."

The chauffeur walked out.

Hamilton Burger turned to Mason and gave an expressive shrug of the shoulders, "There you are," he said. "If any attempt has been made to frame anyone, it's an attempt to frame this chauffeur. You'd better check the story of your client a little bit yourself.

"We'll arraign her at eleven o'clock this morning if that meets with your convenience, and we'll have her preliminary hearing at any time you suggest. We want to give you ample opportunity to prepare."

"That's very nice of you," Mason said, "under the circumstances. We'll have a preliminary just as soon as the judge can get it on the calendar-tomorrow morning, if possible."

Burger's smile was frosty. "You may catch us unprepared on some points, Perry, but you won't catch us with our wearing apparel disarranged. This is one case where you're on the wrong end. Your client is a shrewd, scheming opportunist.

"I don't know yet who she's teamed up with. I don't know who administered the poison to Lauretta Trent, but I do know that it was your client's car that crowded her off the road, and your client has told enough lies to make her exceedingly vulnerable.

"At least we'll get her bound over while we're looking for the other conspirator.

"And now, we'll leave you alone with your client."

Burger nodded to Lieutenant Tragg, and the pair walked out, closing the door behind them.

Mason turned to Virginia Baxter.

She said, "There's been a horrible mistake somewhere, Mr. Mason. That man has the general physical characteristics of the chauffeur-I mean, the man I talked with, the one who gave me the name of Menard… Of course, you were the one who told me he was Lauretta Trent's chauffeur."

"That," Mason said, "was on the strength of the physical description plus the license number of the automobile he was driving. You're sure it was an Oldsmobile?"

"Yes. It wasn't a new Olds but I certainly thought that's what it was… Of course, I could have made a mistake in the license number; that is, I could have been wrong on the last or something like that, but the first figure was a zero."

Mason shook his head, "No, Virginia, that would be too much of a coincidence. But you could have been victimized by someone who inveigled you into doing his dirty work for him. Suppose you try telling me the truth for a change."

"But I have told you the truth."

"I'll
tell you something," Mason said. "If you insist on telling that story, you're going to be bound over for trial on a charge of murder; and if someone is using you as a cat'spaw and you don't give me an opportunity to get you into the clear by telling me exactly what happened, you're in very, very serious trouble."

She shook her head.

"Well?" Mason asked.

She hesitated a moment.

"I've told you the truth," she said at length.

Mason said, "If it's the truth, someone with a diabolically clever mind has carefully inveigled you into a trap."

"It's… it's the truth," she said.

Mason said, "I'm your attorney. If you nsist that a story is the truth, no matter how weird or bizarre it sounds, I have to believe you and not show the slightest doubt when we get to court."

"But you don't really believe me?" she asked.

Mason regarded her thoughtfully. "If you were on a jury and a defendant told a story like that, would you believe her?"

Virginia Baxter started to cry.

"Would you?" Mason asked.

"No," she sobbed, "it sounds too… too-just too much of a series of improbable things."

"Exactly," Mason said. "Now then, you have one defense and only one defense. Either tell me the absolute truth and let me take it from there, or stay with this improbable story. If you do that, I'm going to have to adopt the position that some shrewd, diabolically clever individual is deliberately framing you for murder. And the way events have been taking place, he's very apt indeed to have you convicted."

She looked at him with tearstained eyes.

"Of course, you realize my predicament," Mason said. "Once I adopt the position that you're being framed, if even the slightest part of your story turns out to be false, you'll be swept along into the penitentiary on a tide of adverse public opinion. The slightest falsehood will completely ruin your chances."

She nodded. "I can see that."

"Now then," Mason said, "in view of that situation and in view of that statement, do you want to change your story?"

"I can't change it," she said.

"You mean because you're stuck with it?" Mason asked.

"I just can't change it, Mr. Mason, because it's the truth. That's all."

"All right," Mason told her, "I'll take it from there and do the best I can with it. Sit tight."

The lawyer walked out.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jerry Caswell, the deputy district attorney who had prosecuted Virginia on the charge of possessing narcotics and apparently firmly believed that there had been a miscarriage of justice in that case, had requested the district attorney's office to be permitted to present the People's case against Virginia Baxter at the preliminary hearing.

Now he entered upon his duties with a personalized zest and a grim determination that Perry Mason was not going to get any advantage because of ingenuity or quick thinking.

As his first witness, he called George Eagan.

The chauffeur took the stand, testified as to his name, address and occupation.

"Could you tell us what you were doing on Wednesday night?" Caswell asked.

"I was driving Lauretta Trent in her automobile. We had been to Ventura and were returning along the coast highway."

"Did you have any fixed destination in mind?"

"Mrs. Trent told me that she intended to turn off to go up to a motel that was up in the hills near a lake. She said she would tell me what road to take."

"She didn't tell you what road she intended to take?"

"No, just that she would tell me when to make the turn."

"Now then, are you familiar with the motel known as the Saint's Rest and the road leading to it?"

"Yes, sir. The turnoff is approximately three hundred yards to the north of the Sea Crest Cafй."

"When you approached that turnoff on Wednesday night, what happened?"

"Mrs. Trent asked me to slow down slightly."

"And then what?"

"Well, I realized, of course, that she was going to-"

"Never mind what you thought," Caswell interrupted. "Just confine yourself to answering questions as to facts. What happened?"

"Well, there were headlights coming behind and, since I-Well, I don't know how to express it without saying what I was thinking, but I was preparing for a left turn so I turned-"

"Never mind what you were preparing for; state what you did."

"Well, I swung far over to the right-hand side of the road, just as far as I could get, and waited for this car to pass."

"And did the car pass you?"

"Not in the normal manner."

"What did happen?"

"The car suddenly swerved, its front end hit the front end of my car, then the driver jerked the steering wheel so that the hind end swung over and crashed hard against the front end of my car. It knocked my front end way over, and the car went out of control."

"And what happened?"