The Case of the Sulky Girl (20 page)

"The automobile in which those tests were made wasn't driven very rapidly, was it?" asked Perry Mason.

"Just about the same rate as the automobile in which I was riding on the night of the murder."

"That was Judge Purley's automobile?"

"Yes, sir."

"But you haven't made a test in Judge Purley's automobile, have you?"

"No, sir, in other automobiles."

"Then the tests weren't made under the same conditions; that is, the machine wasn't the same, the window in the rear wasn't the same."

"They were similar," said Don Graves.

Perry Mason stared accusingly at the witness.

"But the tests weren't made under exactly the same conditions."

"No, sir."

"Would you," thundered Perry Mason, "dare to make a test under the same conditions?"

"Objected to as argumentative," snapped Claude Drumm.

"I think," said Judge Markham, "that it may be argumentative, but it has a tendency to show the interest or bias of the witness. The question was, whether or not he would be willing to make a test under certain conditions."

"But such a test wouldn't prove anything more than has already been proven," said Drumm.

"The question," said Judge Markham, "is, whether or not he would be willing to make such a test. I think I will permit the witness to answer."

"Answer the question," said Perry Mason.

"Yes, I would be willing to make such a test."

"If Judge Purley will furnish his automobile, will you make a test while you are riding in such automobile?"

Claude Drumm was on his feet.

"The question is now different, Your Honor. It is not a question now of whether he is willing to make such a test, but if he will make such a test."

"Yes," said Judge Markham, "if you desire to object to that question, I think that I shall sustain an objection to it."

Perry Mason turned to face the jury.

"In that event," he said, "there is no further cross-examination."

"No further cross-examination?" asked Claude Drumm.

"No. The fact speaks for itself," snapped Perry Mason. "You are afraid to have a test made under identical conditions."

The gavel of Judge Markham banged sharply on the desk.

"Counselor," he said, "you will please refrain from personalities and address your remarks to the court, rather than to opposing counsel."

"Your pardon, Your Honor," said Perry Mason, but his voice held no trace of humility, and his eyes twinkled with amusement.

Claude Drumm stared at Perry Mason, and his forehead creased in thought.

"Your Honor," he said, "might I ask at this time for an adjournment until to-morrow morning at ten o'clock? I have been rather surprised at the unexpected progress which this case has made."

"You are no more surprised than the court," said Judge Markham. "Agreeably surprised, I may say. It is customary for murder cases to be drawn out to such prolonged length that it comes as rather a startling innovation to have a case move with such rapidity as this. Your request is granted, Counselor, and court will adjourn until ten o'clock tomorrow morning, during which time the jury will remember the usual admonition of the court against discussing the case or allowing it to be discussed in their presence."

The gavel banged.

Perry Mason swung about in his chair and turned to face the dark eyes of Frances Celane.

He smiled at her reassuringly.

Rob Gleason, sitting at her side, was haggard and drawn, showing the effects of the ordeal; his posture tense and strained, his eyes filled with a lurking fear.

The girl was calm and collected, her eyes gave no hint of her feelings. Her chin was up, and her head back.

Perry Mason leaned toward her.

"Have confidence in me, please," he said.

Only when she smiled at him was there evident the changes which had taken place in her during the ordeal preliminary to the trial. There was a touch of sadness in the smile; a hint of patience that had not been in her face before. She said nothing, but her smile spoke volumes.

Rob Gleason whispered: "A word with you, sir? And in private, please."

A deputy sheriff moved forward, touched Frances Celane on the shoulder. Perry Mason said to him: "Just a moment, please," and led Rob Gleason to one side.

Gleason spoke in hoarse whispers.

"Looks pretty black, doesn't it?"

Perry Mason shrugged his shoulders.

"If," whispered Gleason, "it's going against us, I want to take it all."

"Meaning?" asked the lawyer.

"Meaning," husked Gleason, "that I want to confess and take the sole blame. I want to free Fran of any responsibility."

Steadily, purposefully, remorselessly, Mason's eyes studied Gleason's features.

"It hasn't come to that yet, Gleason," he said. "And it won't. Keep your mouth shut."

He turned and signaled the waiting deputy that the conference was over.

Nevers, with his hair trimmed, his face clean-shaven, wearing a newly pressed suit, twisted his legs up over the arm of the leather chair, and let his eyes study Perry Mason in bored appraisal.

"Sure I'll do you a favor," he said, "if it's anything I can do. The office is friendly toward you. You gave us a nice break on Frances Celane's surrender."

"All right," said Perry Mason, his eyes hard and watchful. "I want you to bear down heavy on the fact that the District Attorney has conducted secret tests to determine whether Don Graves could be telling the truth."

Nevers nodded and yawned.

"I suppose you mean that you want to have an intimation between the lines, that the D.A. wouldn't have had those tests made unless he'd had a little doubt in his own mind about the testimony."

Perry Mason nodded.

"Well," said Harry Nevers, in that expressionless monotone which was so characteristic of him, "that's already been done. I gave you that much of a break in advance."

"All right," said Mason. "Now here's something else. I want you to emphasize the events that happened just before court adjourned; the fact that the District Attorney refused to make a test under identical circumstances."

Nevers inclined his head in a gesture of assent.

"All right," he said, "what's back of it?"

"Back of what?" asked the attorney.

"Back of this test business."

"You can see for yourself," said Mason. "The District Attorney conducted tests. That shows he had some doubt of the ability of the witness to see the occupants of that room, as he claims he did. Furthermore, he has now refused to conduct a test, or permit a test to be conducted under exactly identical circumstances."

"Baloney," said the reporter. "That's a good line to hand to the jury, but I'm asking you for the lowdown."

"There isn't any lowdown," Mason told him.

"The hell there ain't," said Nevers. "Don't think I'm going to pull chestnuts out of the fire for you. You've given me a break in this case, and I'm willing to give you a break. But don't think I'm going to run around playing cat's paw for you, and get my fingers burnt unless I know whether the chestnut is worthwhile reaching for."

Mason shook his head.

"You've got me wrong, Harry," he said. "I simply want to have a test arranged under exactly identical circumstances."

"Well," said Nevers, "we'll talk that over for a while. What do you mean by exactly identical circumstances?"

"Well," said Perry Mason, "here's the way I want the test arranged. I want it so that I'm riding in the front seat of the automobile with Judge Purley. I'll be in the position that Arthur Crinston occupied. I'm perfectly willing to allow Drumm, the Deputy District Attorney, to sit in the back seat with Don Graves."

Harry Nevers stared at him with eyes that showed a glint of surprise.

"Have you gone crazy?" he asked.

"No," said Perry Mason shortly.

"Why you poor damned innocent babe in the woods!" said Nevers. "Don't let Claude Drumm fool you with any of that bushwa about being fair. He's one of the crookedest campaigners in the game. He's the one that ditched the notes that contained the first statement Don Graves made to the police – the one in which he said he recognized Devoe as the murderer, and didn't say anything about there being some other person in the room."

"That's all right," said Mason. "What if he did?"

"Why, simply this: He'll have things arranged so that Don Graves could be blindfolded and still make a one hundred percent identification. If you let him sit within nudging distance of Don Graves or where he can whisper or signal to him, you're just a plain fool."

Perry Mason shook his head and smiled.

"All right, then," said Nevers, "tell me what's up or you don't get a bit of cooperation out of us."

"There are times," said Perry Mason, "when a person has to use a little strategy – for instance when one is stalking a flock of geese it's always advisable to get behind a horse to walk up on the geese."

"What does that mean?" Nevers inquired.

"It means that geese are wild things, and they take flight whenever they see something they can't understand, or something that looks like a hunter," said Perry Mason. "But they're accustomed to the sight of a horse and when they see a horse walking around them, they don't pay any attention to it."

"So you're walking behind a horse?"asked Harry Nevers.

Perry Mason nodded his head.

Nevers slid his feet off the arm of the chair, stood up, and looked steadily at Perry Mason.

"Look here," he said, "you've got a reputation among lawyers of being a fast worker, and a two-fisted campaigner. You've got the reputation of jockeying a case around so that you get in a position to give one knockout punch and then concentrate on that one punch. You don't go around wasting your energy in a lot of little taps that don't mean anything. Now I want to know what the knock-out punch is in this case."

"I'm not certain yet," Perry Mason told him. "There may not be any."

"The hell there ain't," said Nevers. "Look at the way you've tried this case. You have sat back and let the prosecution put in every damned bit of evidence they wanted. You haven't cross-examined the witnesses so as to bring out anything that's to the advantage of either of the defendants."

"What do you mean by that?" inquired Perry Mason in low, ominous tones.

"Keep your shirt on," Nevers drawled tonelessly. "You aren't fooling me any with that stuff. You know as well as I do that Don Graves made a statement to the police the night of the murder, in which he either said, or at least intimated, that the person who struck the blow was Devoe, the chauffeur. He said there wasn't a woman in the room at the time the blow was struck, or at least he failed to say he saw a woman in the room. You've gone ahead and let him testify in this case, and haven't brought that out, or even intimated that he ever made a contradictory statement."

"It wouldn't do any good if I did," Perry Mason said. "The notes of that statement have been destroyed, and Graves would swear, either that he never made such a statement, or that Frances Celane asked him to give her a break, and he tried to leave her out of it."

"Baloney," said Nevers.

Perry Mason slid open a drawer in his desk and took out a flask of whisky.

"I'll tell you this much, Harry," he said. "If you'll play ball with me, you won't be sorry."

"Meaning by that?" asked Nevers.

"Meaning by that you can stick around on this test that's made and save a big slice of the front page for a blowoff."

Harry Nevers pushed back the glass which Mason had handed him with the bottle, and tilted the bottle to his lips. He took half a dozen swallows, then handed the bottle back to the attorney.

"When's this blow-off going to come?" he asked. "Right after the test?"

"I don't think so," said Perry Mason. "I think I'll have to do a little manipulation."

The reporter spoke as though he might have been thinking out loud.

"We can force the D.A. into making that test," he said. "It's a test that is bound to come out all right. But you've got something up your sleeve. You're trying this murder case with no more apparent fight about you than as though you were covering a coroner's inquest. You're going through it with a hop, skip and jump, and letting the prosecution get in all the damaging evidence they want. Everybody in town is talking about what a poor defense you're putting up."

"Yes?" asked Mason, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh forget it!" said Nevers, with a trace of feeling in his voice. "You know damned well they are. A kid out of law school would have tried this case better than you're trying it. Everybody is commenting on it. The town is divided into two camps – those that think you're shrewd as the devil, and have something up your sleeve, and those that think you've just been lucky on your other cases, and haven't got anything on the ball. Naturally, it's an important case. A woman who's got as many millions as Frances Celane at stake; a secret marriage; a sex angle, and all that sort of stuff makes front page news. It's the opportunity of your life to drag this case along, fighting every inch of the way, keeping your name on the front page of the newspaper for two or three weeks. In place of that you're acting like a dub. For a murder case, this thing is streaking through the court like a greased pig going between a farmer's legs."

Perry Mason corked the whisky bottle, and slid it back in the drawer of his desk.

Nevers looked at him searchingly.

"Going to say anything?" he asked.

"No," said Perry Mason.

Nevers grinned and wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

"Okay," said Nevers. "I've done my duty. I'll tell the city editor I tried my damnedest to get something out of you. Maybe I'll fake some piece of inside information that the readers can pick out between the lines."

Perry Mason took the reporter's arm and escorted him to the door of the outer office.

"Listen, Harry," he said, "if you fake anything, be sure you fake it right."

Perry Mason paused in the doorway, suddenly turned and faced the reporter.

"All right," he said, "I'll give you a bit of inside information. Rob Gleason is intending to make a complete confession and take the blame for the crime, exonerating Frances Celane."

Nevers stared at him.

"You can't give me that for publication," he said.

"Why not?" asked Perry Mason.

"It would be violating every professional confidence."

"That's all right," said Mason easily, "you're not using my name, that's all. Simply put it down as coming from a source that is close to the inside."

"My God!" said Nevers. "That would be the worst kind of libel if we couldn't back it up!"

"You can back it up," said Mason. "If anybody calls you on it, you can disclose the source of your information."

"Meaning that it came from you?"

"Meaning that it came from me," Mason told him.

Nevers took a deep breath.

"Listen, Perry," he said, "I've seen 'em come, and I've seen 'em go. I've been in on all kinds of cases, interviewed all kinds of people. I've seen those that were foxy, and those that just thought they were foxy. I've seen those that were dumb, and didn't know it, and those that were dumb, and thought they were smart, but you've got the whole world cheated. This is the damnedest interview with a lawyer I ever had!"

Mason placed his right hand between the reporter's shoulder blades and gently pushed him into the outer office.

"All right," he said, "I've given you a break. Give me one."

Frank Everly was standing in the outer office, his manner filled with impatience.

"Did you want to see me?" asked Perry Mason.

Everly nodded.

"Come in," Mason told him.

Everly walked into the inner office. Perry Mason stood in the door until Harry Nevers had gone out through the outer door, then Mason closed the door of the inner office, and turned to face Everly.

Everly coughed and averted his eyes.

"Didn't the case move rather expeditiously, Mr. Mason?" he asked.

Mason smiled at him with patient, tired eyes.

"In other words," he said, "you've been hearing some comments that I've stubbed my toe on the defense, and the prosecution is walking all over me, is that it?"

Everly turned red and said in a choked voice: "I didn't say anything like that, Mr. Mason."

"Did you ever hear the story," asked Perry Mason, in a kindly tone of voice, "of the man who brought suit against his neighbor, claiming to have been bitten by the neighbor's dog? The neighbor filed an answer in which he denied that his dog was vicious, denied that the dog had bitten the man, and denied that he ever had a dog."

"Yes," said Frank Everly, "I've heard that yarn. It's a classic around law school."

"All right," said Perry Mason. "The defense in that case became humorous because it took in too much territory. Now, when you've got a doubtful case, it's all right to try and have two strings to your bow. But remember that when you have two strings on a bow, while increasing the factor of safety, you lose the efficiency of the weapon. A bow that has two strings won't break a string, but it won't shoot an arrow one quarter of the distance that it would if it only had one string to it."

"You mean you're sacrificing everything in this case to concentrate on some one point?" asked the law clerk.

"Yes," said Perry Mason, "the innocence of Frances Celane and Rob Gleason is virtually shown by the evidence as it exists at the present time. The guilt of the defendants simply cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. But I want to do more than raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. I want to make a complete solution of the case."

Frank Everly stared at Perry Mason with wide, incredulous eyes.

"My heavens!" he said. "I thought that everything that went in to-day clinched the guilt of Frances Celane and Rob Gleason. I thought that unless we could break down the stories of some of those witnesses, we could just as well figure on a verdict of first degree murder."