The Case of the Sulky Girl (15 page)

"I have," Mason told him.

Nevers nodded to the photographer.

"All right, Bill," he said, "better get a photograph of the lawyer at his desk. Drag out some law books. Get that bottle out of the way, and get a couple of shots."

"Don't waste your film," Mason told him. "They won't publish my picture unless it's in connection with a courtroom scene, or walking down the street with Frances Celane, or something like that."

Harry Nevers looked at him moodily, and said, in that bored monotone: "I'm not so certain. It depends on what you've got up your sleeve. You've pulled a couple of fast ones lately, and I'll have these pictures for the morgue in case we need 'em. You can't ever tell what's going to happen."

Perry Mason looked at him shrewdly.

"In other words," he said, "you've heard that there's some talk of arresting me as an accessory after the fact."

Nevers chuckled, a dry, rasping chuckle.

"You've got a good mind, Mason," he said. "But you've got funny ways of trying lawsuits and representing clients. Now that you mention it, it seems to me I did hear something about some stolen money that you'd received on a fee and hadn't surrendered."

Mason's laugh was scornful.

"If I had received any money, what a sweet spot it would put my client in if I walked into the D.A.'s office, and laid the money down on the table and said, virtuously: 'Here it is.'"

"Did you receive any one thousand dollar bills from your client?" asked Harry Nevers, in the tone of one who asks a question without expecting an answer.

Perry Mason made a gesture with his hand.

"If I did," he said, "I'd either have the bills on me, or some place in the office. The office has been searched from top to bottom."

"This morning?" asked Nevers.

"Some time last night," Mason told him.

Nevers jerked his head toward the photograph.

"Better take three pictures, Bill," he said. "Get him at the desk, get him standing up, and get a close-up."

"Hold that smile," said the photographer.

"Wait a minute," said Nevers, "there's going to be a sex angle to this, and I want a little more leg."

Fran Celane continued to smile wanly. She reached down with her left hand and moved her skirt up an inch or two.

"Face the camera," said the photographer.

Harry Nevers said: "Wait a minute. It still ain't right. I want a little more leg."

The smile left her face, her black eyes blazed furiously. She reached down and pulled the skirt far up over the knee with an angry gesture.

"That's too much, Miss Celane," the photographer said.

"All right," she blazed at Nevers, "damn you, you wanted leg! There it is!"

Mason explained patiently.

"You understand, Miss Celane, that these men are friendly to our side of the case. They're going to see that you get some favorable publicity, but, in order to do that, they've got to have a picture that will attract the interest of the public. Now, it's going to help your case a lot if you can get just the right kind of a smile on your face, and at the same time, show just enough of a sex angle to appeal to the masculine eye."

Slowly the glitter faded from her eyes. She adjusted her skirt down over her knee, and once more the wan, pathetic smile came on her face.

"That's oke," said Nevers.

"Hold it," said the photographer, and, "don't blink your eyes."

A puff of white light mushroomed up from the flashgun and a little cloud of smoke twisted and turned as it writhed toward the ceiling.

"All right," said the photographer, "let's try one with a slightly different pose. Handkerchief in the left hand as though you'd been weeping, face mournful. Let the mouth droop a little bit. Not quite so much leg."

Frances Celane flared: "What do you think I am, an actress or a mannequin?"

"That's all right," soothed Perry Mason. "You'll have a lot of this to go through with, Miss Celane. And I want to caution you to keep your temper. If you flare up and show temper, and the newspaper reporters start playing you up as a tiger-woman, it's going to be a bad thing for your case. What I'm trying to do is to get the case brought on for trial, and get a quick acquittal. You've got to cooperate or you may have some unpleasant surprises."

She stared at Perry Mason, sighed, and took the pose they had suggested.

"Chin a little lower and to the left," said the photographer. "Eyes downcast, but not so far that they give the impression of being closed. Get the point of that shoulder a little bit away from the camera, so I can get the sweep of your throat. All right, that's fine. Hold it!"

Once more the shutter clicked, and once more the flashlight gave forth a puff of white smoke.

"Okay," said the photographer. "That's fine for those two."

Perry Mason crossed to the telephone.

"Get me Claude Drumm at the District Attorney's office," he said.

When he had Drumm on the line, he said: "I'm awfully sorry, Drumm, but Miss Celane is very much indisposed. She's had a nervous breakdown and was ordered to a sanitarium by her physician. She left the sanitarium to come in and surrender herself into custody when she knew that the police were looking for her. She's at my office now, and she's suffering from nervousness. I think you'd better arrange to pick her up here."

"I thought you said she had left your office when you telephoned before," said Drumm, with a trace of annoyance in his voice.

"No," said Mason, "you misunderstood me. I said that she had started for your office. I told you I didn't know what stops she intended to make on the way. She was nervous, and stopped in here because she wanted me to go with her."

Drumm said: "All right, the police will be there," and slammed up the telephone.

Mason turned and grinned at Nevers.

"If I'd let them know she was coming here to surrender herself, they'd have had men parked around to grab her before she got here," he said.

"Oh, well," said Nevers. "It's all in the game. I could stand another drink of that whisky if you've got it handy."

"I could stand a drink myself," said Fran Celane.

Mason shook his head at her.

"No, we're going to be in the middle of action pretty quick, and I don't want you to have liquor on your breath, Miss Celane. You've got to remember that every little thing you do, and everything you say, will be snapped up and dished out to the public.

"Now remember that under no circumstances are you to talk about the case or to lose your temper. Those are two things you've got to remember. Talk about anything else, give the reporters plenty of material. Tell them about the romance of your secret marriage with Rob Gleason. Tell them how you admire him and what a wonderful man he is. Tell them all about the childhood you had, the fact that your parents died and that your uncle was the same as a father and a mother to you. Try to get the note of the poor little rich girl who has neither father nor mother, but is rolling in coin.

"Give them all the material that they want to write sob sister articles and character sketches, and that stuff. But the minute they start talking about the case, or what happened on that night, simply dry up like a clam. Tell them that you're awfully sorry, that you'd like to talk about it, and you don't see any reason why you couldn't, but that your lawyer has given you specific instructions that he's to do all the talking. Tell them you think it's silly, and that you can't understand why your lawyer feels that way, because you've got nothing to conceal, and you'd like to come right out and tell the whole circumstances as you remember them, but you've promised your lawyer, and you're not going to break your promise to anybody.

"They'll try all sorts of tricks on you, and probably tell you Rob Gleason has made a full confession, or that he has told the officers he has reason to believe that you committed the murder, or that you made certain incriminating statements to him, or they'll tell you that he has come to the conclusion that you are guilty and has made a confession in order to take the jolt so that you'll be spared. They'll try all sorts of stuff. Simply look at them with a dumb expression on your face, and say nothing. And for God's sake, don't lose your temper. They'll probably do things that will make you want to kill them, but if you lose your temper and fly into one of your rages, they'll spread it all over the front pages of the newspaper, that you've got an ungovernable temper, and are one of these tiger women."

"I understand," she said.

There was the sound of a siren drifting up through the windows of the office.

Frances Celane shuddered.

"Well," said Nevers to the photographer, "get your camera all loaded up, boy, because some of these cops will want to get their picture in the paper, taking the suspect into custody. Probably Carl Seaward will show up from the Homicide Squad. He's one of those birds that likes to stick his stomach in front of a camera and put his hand on the shoulder of the prisoner, with a photograph for the front page labeled: 'Carl Seaward, intrepid investigator of the Homicide Squad, taking the suspect into custody, marking the termination of a case which has baffled the entire police force for the past forty-eight hours.'

"Maybe I'd better get in this picture too. I wonder if my hair is on straight. I can pose as the STAR reporter who assisted the police in locating the suspect."

And Nevers struck a pose in front of the camera, grinning.

Frances Celane surveyed him in scornful appraisal.

"Show a little leg," she said.

"Well," he said, "we've got our contact with Mrs. Mayfield. But it isn't getting us anything. We had one devil of a time. The police had her in custody as a material witness for a while."

"Have you worked the rough shadow business on her yet?" inquired Mason.

"Not yet. We're building up to it. We've got a woman operative who's posing as a woman who's been abroad as a governess, and is now out of work. We've checked back on Mrs. Mayfield and found all about her early associates. We managed to run one of them down and got all the dope from her about the names of the people she knew, and all that sort of stuff."

"This woman is getting across all right?" asked Mason.

"I'll say she's getting across. She's got Mrs. Mayfield confiding in her, all of her troubles with her husband, and all that sort of stuff."

"But she hasn't said anything about the murder?" asked Mason.

"Not a peep so far. That is, of course, she mentions that she was taken to the District Attorney's office and held for awhile as a material witness until they got a signed statement out of her, and a lot of that stuff. But she isn't going into details. All that she's telling is simply a rehash of what she's told the newspapers."

"How about Don Graves?" inquired the attorney. "How are you getting along with him?"

Paul Drake put the finishing touches on the cigarette.

"We're making some real progress there," he said, "We've got a young lady operative who has contacted him, and Graves is falling for her like a ton of brick. He's telling her everything he knows."

"About the case?" asked Mason.

"About the case, about everything. He's turning himself inside out."

"This woman must be good," said Mason.

"I'll say she's good," explained Drake enthusiastically. "She'd knock your eye out. She's got one of those confiding techniques that snuggles up and looks at you with big eyes, and seems to listen all over. You just naturally ache to tell her things. My God, every time I go out with that broad, I sit down and start telling her all of my troubles; about the girl that jilted me in my childhood, so that I never got married, and all that stuff.

"You've seen a guy when he's about nine-tenths drunk, going around and weeping on the necks of total strangers and telling all of his private affairs? Well, that's just the way this jane works. She affects the fellows just about like nine-tenths of a drunk. They fall all over her and spill everything."

"That's fine," said Mason. "What have you found out?"

"So far, just stuff you don't want to hear," said the detective. "It don't help your client a damn bit."

"All right," said Mason, "give me the lowdown, and don't try to put a sugar coating on it. Give me the facts."

"The facts are," said Drake, "that this Celane girl had on a pink negligee the night the murder was committed. Graves was sent by Edward Norton to ride up with Judge Purley and Arthur Crinston to get some documents. He kept looking back toward the house as they went around the curves in the road and when they got to the point in the road where he could look up at the window in Edward Norton's study, he saw somebody standing back of Norton, who was seated at his desk.

"More than that, he says that he saw the man swing a club down on Edward Norton's head, and Norton collapsed across the desk. He says that he saw the arm, shoulder and head of a woman, and that he thinks he is positive of the identity of both the man and the woman. The woman had on a pink negligee."

"He made that statement to the District Attorney's office?" asked Mason.

"Yes, he's made it, and subscribed and sworn to it."

"That isn't the statement he made the first time," Mason pointed out. "When they were making their first investigation, Graves said that he saw the man in the room, who struck the blow, and didn't see anyone else except Norton."

"That won't help you any," said Drake casually. "You can't prove that."

"They took the statement down in shorthand," said Mason.

Drake laughed.

"Those notes have been lost. I'm just telling you in the event you don't know it," he said. "I made it a point to ask one of the newspaper reporters to inquire of the shorthand stenographer who took down the statements there that night. Strange as it may seem, something happened, and the notebook had been misplaced. It's disappeared."

He grinned at the lawyer.

Perry Mason stared down at the surface of his desk, his brows in straight lines of frowning concentration.

"The dirty crooks," he said. "The D.A. always howls to high heaven about the crooked criminal lawyers who manipulate the facts. But whenever the D.A. uncovers any evidence that gives the defendant a break, you can bet something happens to it."

The detective shrugged his shoulders.

"The D.A.'s want convictions," he said.

"Can your operative get into Mrs. Mayfield's room in Norton's residence, Paul?" Mason asked.

"Sure. That's a cinch."

"All right, I want her to make a report on every dress that's in there. In other words, I want to see if there's a pink dress or a pink negligee in there."

Paul Drake squinted at the lawyer significantly.

"It wouldn't be such a hard job to put one in there," he said.

"No," said Mason, "I'm going to play fair."

"What's the use of playing fair?" asked Drake. "They didn't play fair with you."

"I can't help that," said Mason. "I think I've got an out in this case, and I'm going to play it fair and square. I think I can beat the rap if I can get a decent break."

"Listen," said Paul Drake, drawing his feet up to the desk, and sitting cross-legged on the corner of it, "you haven't got an out in this case. They've got your client as good as convicted right now. Look what they've got on her. She's the one that would have benefited by the old man's death. In fact, with that marriage hanging over her head, she either had to kill him, or lose an estate that's worth a big bunch of money.

"This fellow, Gleason, may have married the woman because he loved her, or he may have married her because he wanted her money. Nobody knows which, but he gets all the credit for marrying her for money. The theory of the prosecution is that when he found out about the trust provision, he and the girl tried to reason with Norton. When Norton wouldn't listen to reason, Gleason made up his mind he'd bump him off. They had a big squabble. He'd have killed Norton right then if it hadn't been for Crinston coming to keep an appointment. So Gleason waited around until Crinston left, then jimmied a window to make it look as though burglars had broken in from the outside. Then he cracked down on Norton's head.

"He probably hadn't figured on any robbery at the time. He just wanted to make it look like robbery, so he turned the pockets inside-out. He found so much money in the wallet, he decided to keep it. Then he heard Crinston coming back, and had to do something quick. He knew the chauffeur was drunk, so he dashed down and planted as much of the evidence on him as he could, and then beat it.

"Frances Celane was with Gleason when the murder was committed. She's got the devil of a temper when she gets aroused. Probably she was in a rage, but Gleason married her for her dough. It was a deliberate crime on his part. He'd probably worked out the burglar plant while Crinston was talking with Norton. When he heard the car coming back, he realized he must have been seen, or that something had gone wrong, so then he framed the chauffeur, just as a second string to his bow."

Perry Mason stared at the detective with his eyes cold and hard.

"Paul," he said, "if they go into court on that theory, I'm going to bust it wide open."

"You're not going to bust anything wide open," Drake told him. "They've got all kinds of circumstantial evidence. They've caught the girl in half a dozen lies. Why did she say that she was out in the Buick sedan when she wasn't? They can prove that the car never left the garage. Mrs. Mayfield has worked up that end of the case for them; and the butler will swear positively that the car was there all the time. They can prove the ownership of the club that killed Norton, and they can prove that the girl had some of the money that came from Norton…"

Perry Mason jerked to rigid attention.

"They can prove the girl had the money?" he asked.

"Yes," said Drake.

"How?" asked the lawyer.

"I don't know exactly how, but I do know that it's part of their case. They've got it all worked up. I think it's through the Mayfield woman."

"Well," said Mason wearily, "we're going to have a chance to find out. I'm going to force them to bring that case to an immediate trial."

"Force them to an immediate trial?" exclaimed Drake. "Why I thought you were stalling for delay. The newspapers say that you are."

Perry Mason grinned at him.

"That," he said, "is the way I'm forcing them to a trial. I'm yelling for continuances, and asking for additional time, as though my clients would be stuck if I didn't get them. Naturally, they're opposing my continuances. After I've got the D.A.'s office to make that opposition sufficiently vigorous, I'm going to admit that I'm licked, and let them bring the case on for trial."

Drake shook his head.

"They won't fall for that one," he said, "it's too old."

"It won't be old the way I dress it up," said Mason. "What I want you to do is to play this rough shadow business on Mrs. Mayfield, and also on Don Graves. I want to see if we can't frighten some facts out of them. Neither one of them is telling the truth – not yet. And I want to find out more about that money, whether the District Attorney had proof or just suspicions."

"You going to try and saddle the murder off on Mrs. Mayfield and her husband?" asked Drake.

"I'm going to represent my client to the best of my ability," Mason insisted.

"Yeah, I know that line," the detective told him, "but what does it mean?"

Mason tapped a cigarette end on the polished surface of the desk.

"The way to get to the bottom of a murder," he said, "is to pick out any pertinent fact which hasn't been explained, and find the real explanation of that fact."

"Sure," said Drake, "that's another generality. Get down to earth. What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the reason Norton had for claiming the Buick sedan was stolen," said the lawyer.

"What's that got to do with it?" Drake wanted to know.

"Everything," insisted Perry Mason. "That's an unexplained fact in that case, and until we get the explanation of that fact, we haven't got a solution of the murder."

"That's a good line of hooey for the jury," commented the detective, "but it doesn't really mean anything. You can't explain everything in any case. You know that."

"Until you can explain it," doggedly insisted Mason, "you haven't got a complete case. Now remember that the prosecution is going to rest its case on circumstantial evidence. In order to get a conviction on circumstantial evidence, you've got to exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than that of guilt."

The detective snapped his fingers.

"A lot of lawyer talk," he said. "That doesn't mean anything to the newspapers, and the newspapers are going to be the ones who will determine whether or not your client gets convicted."

"Well, before I get done with this case," Mason remarked, "the newspapers are going to figure that Buick car is the most important fact in the entire case."

"But the automobile wasn't stolen. It didn't leave the garage."

"That's what the butler says."

Drake's face suddenly became hard with concentrated attention.

"You mean that the butler is lying?" he asked.

"I'm not making any statements right now," said Mason. Drake spoke in a monotone, as though thinking out loud.

"Of course if the butler had taken the car and disconnected the speedometer, and maybe gone for a little drive, and Norton had telephoned the police that the car was stolen, and he wanted the driver picked up, no matter who it might be, and then the butler had come back and found out about that telephone call…"

His voice trailed off into silence. He sat motionless for a few minutes, then shook his head sadly.

"No, Perry," he said, "that won't work."

"All right," said Mason, smiling, "I'm not asking you what'll work and what won't work. I want facts out of you. Get the hell off of my desk, and let me go to work. Put your rough shadows to work just as soon as you can. I'm anxious to find out what they uncover."

"You're representing both Gleason and the woman, eh?" asked Drake.

"Yes, I am now. Frances Celane is going to stand by her husband. She's told me to represent him."

"All right, I'm going to ask you something that's been asked me by a dozen different people. I hope you won't take any offense, but it's for your own good, because everybody in town is talking about it. They're saying that if the lawyer for the defense has any sense why doesn't he try to get separate trials and try the man and the woman separately? In that way they'd have to try the man first, and you'd have a chance to find out all their evidence and cross-examine all their witnesses before they got down to a trial of the woman."