The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister

by Erle Stanley Gardner

“Now then,” Mason said, “I am going to object to the question asked by Counsel on the ground that no proper foundation has been laid, that it assumes facts not in evidence, that it fails to state facts which are in evidence.”

  “What facts are omitted?” Moon challenged.

  “Mainly the fact that Dr. Hanover based his testimony in part upon the state of the contents of the stomach and the condition of the meal which he assumed had been ingested at the usual meal hour. I am going to point out that Dr. Hanover has no means of knowing when that meal was ingested and therefore his testimony is dependent entirely upon that of body temperature.

  “I also want to point out that the witness, Mrs. Lorton, your own witness, by whose testimony you are bound, stated specifically that when the defendant went to the apartment of J. J. Fritch, whom she knew as Frank Reedy, that Mr. J. J. Fritch opened the door and let her in. She didn’t say ‘some man.’ She said that Fritch himself opened the door and let her in. Now at that time it is quite apparent that Fritch must have been fully dressed. If the witness Lorton saw him clearly enough to know that he was the one who let the defendant into the apartment, she would certainly have noticed if Mr. Fritch had answered the door in his underwear and admitted a woman to his apartment while he was so attired. It is, therefore, obvious that the only yardstick which Dr. Hanover has for fixing the time of death is that of temperature, and since it now appears in the evidence that Fritch was apparently fully dressed at the time of Miss Bain’s call, but was clad in his underwear at the time he met his death, I submit that the witness be not permitted to answer this question as it is now asked.”

  “Oh, I’ll put it to him this way,” Moon said. “I’ll meet the issue head-on. I’ll take the bull by the horns. Dr. Hanover, assuming only the facts that you yourself know, assuming that you don’t know the time Fritch ingested the meal which you found in his stomach, predicating your testimony entirely on the temperature of the body, is it or is it not possible that the decedent met his death later than three o’clock in the morning, but the conditions of temperature which you found could have been caused by placing the body in a deep-freeze compartment?”

  “Also pointing out,” Mason interjected, “the fact that this would absolutely account for the position of the hands at the time that rigor mortis of the arms and shoulders set in.”

  “I don’t have to put that in my question,” Moon said, testily.

  Mason grinned. “I’m merely calling it to the doctor’s attention because his professional reputation is at stake, and I may also point out to the witness and to Counsel that before we get done we’re going to prove what actually happened.”

  “You don’t need to threaten this witness,” Moon shouted.

  “I’m not threatening him, I’m cautioning him,” Mason said, and sat down.

  “Answer the question,” Moon said.

  Dr. Hanover ran his hand over his bald head, glanced once more at the books Mason had opened, said to the deputy district attorney, “That is, of course, rather a difficult question.”

  “What’s difficult about it?”

  “I have previously observed,” Dr. Hanover said, “that in fixing the time of death from the temperature of the body, it is necessary to take into consideration the manner in which the body is clothed and the temperature of the surrounding environment. When I fixed the time of death as being between twelve o’clock and 3:00 A.M., I took into consideration the fact that the body was unclothed save for an athletic undershirt and boxer trunks. I also took into consideration the temperature of the apartment in which the body was found.”

  The doctor squirmed uneasily. “I will have to say that if you change any of those constant factors, or factors which I took to be constant, you naturally change my conclusions.”

  “But would that change your conclusions enough so that it would make that much of a time difference?” Moon protested.

  Dr. Hanover, now having the deputy district attorney on the defensive, said quietly, “I’m afraid you would have to tell me, Mr. Moon, what was the temperature of the interior of that frozen-food container.”

  “I don’t know,” Moon said.

  “Then I can’t answer the question,” Dr. Hanover said, smiling affably as he realized the avenue of escape he had opened up for himself.

  “But we can find out,” Moon said. “I suggest, if the Court please, that before there is any opportunity to tamper with the evidence in this case, the Court takes a look at the premises, that the Court adjourn so we can take a look at that icebox right here and now, and I suggest that the witness, Dr. Hanover, be required to go to inspect the premises with us.”

  “I think the Court would like to take a look at those premises,” Judge Kaylor ruled. “Under the circumstances it would certainly seem to be advisable.”

  “Now just a moment, Your Honor,” Moon went on. “I suggest that all of this grandstand divertissement has been done for the purpose of staving off the evil moment when Mr. Perry Mason has to account for how he came to have this master record with its splices and its background of murder. I suggest that all of this is a desperate expedient to draw a series of red herrings across the trail so that no one will examine him as to what he did when he entered Fritch’s apartment at nine o’clock on the morning of the seventh. We have a tape recording of Mr. Mason’s own voice showing that he himself went into Fritch’s apartment for the purpose of making a search. I would like to have the Court hear that recording before we go out there.”

  Mason laughed. “The recording is completely, absolutely incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. He can only use it for the purpose of impeaching me. He can’t impeach me until I have testified to something that is opposed to the matters on that recording.”

  “Well, let me ask you,” Moon said, “did you or didn’t you enter Fritch’s apartment at nine o’clock on the morning of the seventh?”

  “Now, let’s see,” Mason said, “how long was that after the murder had been committed? Four hours or six hours?”

  “That was at least six hours after the latest date the murder could have been committed!” Moon shouted. “That’s what Dr. Hanover said and I’m sticking by his testimony until he changes it.”

  “I thought he’d changed it,” Mason said. “However, you are now seeking to bind the defendant by some action I took six hours after the murder with which she is charged was committed, at a time when I have assured you I was not representing the defendant in this case. You are seeking to impeach me by introducing a tape recording of a conversation about which the defendant never knew, a conversation which took place in her absence.”

  Judge Kaylor shook his head. “I am afraid, Mr. Moon,” he said, “that the objection is only too well taken. If, of course, you wish to use this tape recording for the purpose of substantiating a charge of unprofessional conduct, of concealing evidence, of becoming an accessory after the fact, or any other thing along those lines, you’re entitled to do so, but you certainly can’t use it here save for purposes of impeachment, and you can only impeach an answer of a witness that is made in response to a relevant question.”

  “So,” Mason said, grinning, “I suggest we go look at the premises.”

  Judge Kaylor nodded. “Court will adjourn to reconvene at the premises in question.”

  The sound of the bailiff’s gavel was the trigger which released a terrific uproar, a veritable pandemonium of voices as people engaged in arguments among themselves, called out comments to the various parties, some of them pressing forward to shake Mason’s hand.

  Hattie Bain glanced at Mason with wide, apprehensive eyes. “Is it—what does this mean—good or bad?”

  “You’ll have to be patient,” Mason told her. “You’re going to have to return to the custody of the matron.”

  “For how long?”

  Mason grinned. “Not too long, the way things look now,” he reassured her.

  Chapter 15

  Sergeant Holcomb unlocked the door of the Fritch apartment. His fa
ce was dark with anger.

  “Now, of course,” Judge Kaylor said, “it is usual in such cases to have all testimony taken in court and no testimony given while we are inspecting the premises. However, in this case since there is no jury I see no reason for enforcing such a rule.

  “Now, Mr. Mason, you had reference to a deep-freeze box.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Will you show me that, Sergeant?” Judge Kaylor asked.

  Sergeant Holcomb led the way to the deep-freeze and threw back the cover.

  “Now, as I understand it, Mr. Mason,” Judge Kaylor said, “it is your contention that the body was placed in this deepfreeze.”

  “The Court will notice that the box is big enough to accommodate a man,” Mason said.

  “So are a thousand other iceboxes within a radius of a hundred yards,” Sergeant Holcomb blurted.

  “That will do, Sergeant,” Judge Kaylor said. “I simply want to get Mr. Mason’s contention. Now, Mr. Mason, is there any evidence, any single bit of evidence whatever that would indicate that the body had been put in here? There is the opportunity. The box is deep enough. However, you’re going to have to show more than opportunity.”

  “In the first place,” Mason said, “let’s look at this.”

  He grabbed a pasteboard container of ice cream from the top of the deep-freeze, pulled the cover back, walked over to a silverware drawer in the cupboard, took out a teaspoon and plunged it down into the contents of the ice cream.

  “Do you see what I mean?” he asked.

  Judge Kaylor frowned. “I’m not certain that I do.”

  “This ice cream,” Mason said, “was melted and then refrozen. See how it has frozen into crystals? It isn’t smooth, as would have been the case if it had been stored without having been melted.”

  “I see, I see,” Judge Kaylor said, his voice showing great interest. “Let me take a look at that.”

  He took the spoon and plunged it into the ice cream. The edge of the spoon rasped on frozen crystals.

  “You see there’s been a shrinkage in volume and it has frozen in the form of flakes, not as a smooth mixture,” Mason said.

  “Sergeant,” Judge Kaylor snapped, his tone showing sudden interest, “open up another one of those ice-cream cartons.”

  Sergeant Holcomb pulled back the cover of another.

  “The same condition,” Mason said.

  Judge Kaylor tested it with the spoon.

  “Try another one, Sergeant.”

  Again Sergeant Holcomb took out another container, and Judge Kaylor plunged the spoon into it, brought up the contents so he could inspect them.

  “This certainly is interesting,” he said.” Quite apparently this ice cream has been melted and refrozen.”

  “Any icebox is apt to have trouble,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I’m not certain but what we shut off this icebox when we were inspecting the place.”

  “Did you?” Judge Kaylor asked.

  “I’m not certain.”

  “Well, you should be certain if you shut it off,” the judge snapped.

  He turned to Mason and there was a new interest in his voice. “Do you have any other evidence, Mr. Mason?”

  “Certainly,” Mason said. “Take out the packages. Test the bottom of the deep-freeze for blood stains.”

  “This is only a grandstand,” Moon said. “This was done to get newspaper publicity to divert attention from—”

  “Sergeant,” Judge Kaylor asked, “did you remove the foodstuffs from this deep-freeze unit when you inspected the premises?”

  “We didn’t touch a thing in there,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “We preserved everything just like it was. We looked the place over for fingerprints, that’s all.”

  “Take them out,” Judge Kaylor ordered.

  “Of course, if we once take them out they’ll start melting and Perry Mason will claim—”

  “Take them out,” Judge Kaylor ordered. “We’ve already ascertained that the ice cream has been out long enough to at least partially melt. Now get the rest of these things out. Let’s look at the bottom of this box.”

  Sergeant Holcomb started lifting out the packages. He tossed out one package after another, piling them helterskelter on the floor, mixing up meats, frozen vegetables, frozen fruits. His manner was all but openly defiant.

  As he neared the bottom of the box Judge Kaylor leaned over to look.

  As the last package thudded to the floor, Judge Kaylor said, “It took you two minutes and eighteen seconds, Sergeant and—what’s that?”

  “That’s a place where some of the juice leaked out of the meat,” Holcomb said.

  “Juice doesn’t leak out of meat that’s frozen hard,” Judge Kaylor snapped. “I Want—Where’s Dr. Hanover?”

  “He’s coming,” Moon said. “He—”

  “Well, get him,” Judge Kaylor said. “I want every precaution taken to see that that stain is not disturbed. I want the police technicians up here. I want to find out if that’s human blood. If there’s enough of it to type I want the blood typed with that of the victim, J. J. Fritch.”

  Judge Kaylor turned to Mason. “How did you know that stain was there, Mr. Mason?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know, Your Honor. I surmised.”

  “Well, you took a long gamble on it,” Judge Kaylor said, his manner suspicious.

  Mason grinned at him. “What else was there to take a gamble on?” he asked.

  Judge Kaylor thought that over and slowly a smile touched the corners of his stern mouth. “I guess you have something there, Counselor,” he said, and turned away.

  “Moreover,” Mason pointed out, indicating the pile of packages which Sergeant Holcomb had dumped on the floor, “you’ll notice a couple of blood smears on the outside of one of those packages. I think if Your Honor will have the fingerprint expert up here you may find there’s a latent fingerprint outlined in blood on that package.”

  “That’s where the butcher wrapped it up,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “That—”

  “Let me see, let me see,” Judge Kaylor announced. He peered down at the package, then abruptly straightened. “Everybody clear out of here,” he said. “I want everybody out of this apartment. I want this place sealed up. I want the fingerprint expert and the police pathologist in here and then I’m going to tell them how I want this apartment searched for evidence.”

  The judge glowered at Sergeant Holcomb and, angered by the surly look on Holcomb’s face, added, “And you may consider that a rebuke, Sergeant.”

  Chapter 16

  Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake sat in Drake’s office. From time to time Mason consulted his wrist watch.

  “Gosh, it’s taking them long enough,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” Drake told him. “They’re being thorough, that’s all. Believe me, they’re really going to go to town this time. Judge Kaylor is mad as a wet hen.”

  Mason got up from his chair and started impatiently pacing the floor.

  “I don’t see how you had the thing figured out,” Drake said.

  “I didn’t have it figured out,” Mason told him. “That’s what bothers me. I had to take a gamble. But remember this, Sylvia Atwood is a shrewd, calculating individual, yet she could have been telling the truth about that corpse tumbling out of the closet where the liquor was kept, and falling to the floor. I heard her scream and we could hear the thud of the body falling.

  “The streaks of post-mortem lividity were on the back. Therefore, the body must have been lying on its back, but the body couldn’t have been lying on its back if it had been in the liquor closet as she said.

  “Now why would anyone move the body? The only reason I could think of was that someone didn’t want the body found in the place where it had been lying while the post-mortem lividity formed.

  “That meant it was to the advantage of someone, presumably the murderer, to see that the body was found in a different place from where it had been lying.

  “The body was
clad only in underwear. There were no clothes belonging to J. J. Fritch in Brogan’s apartment. Therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that Fritch was killed in his own apartment. He was probably getting ready for bed, or perhaps he had already gone to bed and—”

  “But the bed was made. It hadn’t been slept in,” Drake said.

  Mason grinned. “Anyone can make a bed.”

  “Go on,” Drake said.

  “If the body had been moved,” Mason said, “and judging from the peculiar position of the body it must have been crowded into some small space—”

  “It would have been crowded in a small space in the liquor closet,” Drake pointed out.

  “But in that event the post-mortem lividity would have been lower down and not around the back of the neck, and the arms would have been down.”

  “Yes, I guess that’s so,” Drake said.

  “Therefore,” Mason said, “we came to the unmistakable conclusion that the body had been moved. Now Hattie Bain couldn’t have moved that body, not by herself. Neither could Sylvia Atwood. Moreover, moving the body wouldn’t have done them any good. The person who moved that body must have moved it for a reason. The only reason I can think of was that he wanted to establish an alibi. He wanted to establish it by interfering with the normal rate of cooling of a dead body.”

  “Do you think Brogan had time enough to do all that?” Drake asked.

  Mason said, “Let’s look at it this way, Paul. Somebody moved that body. It was done for a definite purpose. The most logical assumption is that it was done to build up an alibi, therefore we are looking for someone who has an alibi between midnight and two or three o’clock in the morning, but who does not have an alibi for a later hour.

  “It has to be someone who is strong enough to have picked up a body and moved it. It has to be someone whom J. J. Fritch would have received in his underwear. We know that someone made the bed and fixed up Fritch’s apartment, probably in order to make it appear Fritch had been killed earlier before he had gone to bed.”

  “How do we know that?” Drake asked.

  “Because,” Mason said, “the body may have been put in an icebox. That would make the autopsy surgeon think the murder had been committed earlier than had been the case. But even the autopsy surgeon fixes the earliest date at midnight. Now when I went in there that morning the television was on. Fritch would hardly have had the television on much after midnight. There weren’t any programs at that hour. That indicates Fritch either met his death before midnight or that somebody tampered with the evidence.”