“You’re sure?”
“Dead sure. One of the detectives who worked on the case knows the angle. He tipped a newspaper reporter off to come and see you get torn to ribbons tomorrow, and the reporter pumped him enough to find out what it was. That reporter is very friendly with one of my men, and we got a tip-off.”
“What is it?” Mason asked.
“We’ll have all the dope in a minute. They’re bringing the report down here,” Drake said. “It concerns the woman that Duane Jefferson is trying to protect.”
Mason said, “Now, we’re getting somewhere, Paul. If I know that information, I don’t care what Hamilton Burger things he’s going to do with it. I’ll out-general him somehow.”
They waited anxiously until knuckles tapped on the door. Drake opened the door, took an envelope from his secretary, said, “You’re getting operatives out checking those car rentals?”
“That’s already being done, Mr. Drake. I put Davis in charge of it, and he’s on the telephone right now.”
“Fine,” Drake said. “Let’s take a look. I’ll give you the dope, Perry.”
Drake opened the envelope, pulled out the sheets of flimsy, looked through them hastily, then whistled.
“All right,” Mason said, “give.”
Drake said, “The night of June fifth Jefferson was down at a nightspot with a woman. It was the woman’s car. The parking attendant parked the car and some customer scratched a fender. The attendant got records of license numbers and all that. The woman got in a panic, gave the parking attendant twenty bucks, and told him to forget the whole thing.
“Naturally, the attendant had the answer as soon as that happened. She was a married woman. There’s no doubt the guy with her was Duane Jefferson.”
“Who was she?” Mason asked.
“A woman by the name of Nan Ormsby.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “Perhaps I can use this. It’ll depend on how far the affair has gone.”
Drake, who had continued reading the report, suddenly gave another whistle.
“What now?” Mason asked.
“Hold everything,” Drake said. “You have a juror number eleven Alonzo Martin Liggett?”
“What about him?” Mason asked.
“He’s a close friend of Dan Ormsby. Ormsby is in partnership with his wife. They have a place called ‘Nan and Dan, Realtors.’ Nan Ormsby has been having trouble with her husband. She wants a settlement. He doesn’t want the kind of settlement she wants. He hasn’t been able to get anything on her yet.
“Now, with a juror who is friendly to Dan Ormsby, you can see what’ll happen.”
“Good Lord!” Mason said. “If Hamilton Burger uses that lever—”
“Remember, this tip comes straight from Hamilton Burger’s office,” Drake said.
Mason sat in frowning concentration.
“How bad is it?” Drake asked.
“It’s a perfect setup for a D.A.,” Mason said. “If he can force me to put my client on the stand, he can to go town. The jury isn’t going to like Duane Jefferson’s pseudo-British manner, his snobbishness. You know how they feel about people who get tied up with the British and then become more English than the English, and that’s what Jefferson has done. He’s cultivated all those mannerisms. So Hamilton Burger will start boring into him—he was breaking up a home, he was out with a married woman—and there’s Dan Ormsby’s friend sitting on the jury.”
“Any way you can beat that, Perry?” Drake asked.
“Two ways,” Mason said, “and I don’t like either one. I can either base all of my fight on trying to prove that there’s been no corpus delicti, and keep the case from going to the jury, or, if the judge doesn’t agree with me on that, I’ll put the defendant on the stand, but confine my direct examination to where he was at five o’clock on the morning of the sixth and roar like the devil if the district attorney tries to examine him as to the night of the fifth. Since I wouldn’t have asked him anything about the night of the fifth—only the morning of the sixth—I can claim the D.A. can’t examine him as to anything on the night of the fifth.”
“He’ll make a general denial that he committed the crime?” Drake asked.
Mason nodded.
“Won’t that open up the question of where he was on the night of the fifth when the boat was being rented?”
“The prosecution’s case shows that the defendant wasn’t seen until the morning of the sixth, after the boat had been rented—that is, that’s the prosecution’s case so far. We have the testimony of Jack Gilly to that effect.”
“Well,” Drake said, “I’ll go down to my office and start things going. I’ll have my men on the job working all night. You’d better get some sleep, Perry.”
Mason’s nod showed his preoccupation with other thoughts. “I’ve got to get this thing straight, Paul. I have a sixth sense that’s warning me. I guess it’s the way Hamilton Burger has been acting. This is one case where I’ve got to watch every time I put my foot down that I’m not stepping right in the middle of a trap.”
“Well,” Drake said, “you pace the floor and I’ll cover the country, Perry. Between us, we may be in a better position tomorrow morning.”
Mason said, “I should have known. Burger has been triumphant, yet his case is a matter of patchwork. It wasn’t the strength of his own case that made him triumphant, but the weakness of my case.”
“And now that you know, can you detour the pitfalls?” Drake asked.
“I can try,” Mason said grimly.
Chapter 17
Judge Hartley called Court to order promptly at ten.
Hamilton Burger said, “I have a couple more questions to ask Mr. Max Dutton, the gem expert.”
“Just a moment,” Mason said. “If the Court please, I wish to make a motion. I feel that perhaps this motion should be made without the presence of the jury.”
Judge Hartley frowned. “I am expecting a motion at the conclusion of the prosecution’s case,” he said. “Can you not let your motion wait until that time, Mr. Mason? I would like to proceed with the case as rapidly as possible.”
“One of my motions can wait,” Mason said. “The other one, I think, can properly be made in the presence of the jury. That is a motion to exclude all of the evidence of Mae Jordan on the ground that there is nothing in her testimony which in any way connects the defendant with any crime.”
“If the Court please,” Hamilton Burger said, “the witness, Dutton, will testify that one of the diamonds which was found on the underside of the desk in Perry Mason’s office was one of the identical diamonds which was in the Munroe Baxter collection.”
Mason said, “That doesn’t connect the defendant, Duane Jefferson, with anything. Jefferson didn’t give her those diamonds. Even if we are to take her testimony at face value, even if we are to concede for the sake of this motion that she took those diamonds out of the office instead of going to the office to plant diamonds, the prosecution can’t bind the defendant by anything that Walter Irving did.”
“It was done in his presence,” Hamilton Burger said, “and as a part of a joint enterprise.”
“You haven’t proven either one of those points,” Mason said.
Judge Hartley stroked his chin. “I am inclined to think this motion may be well taken, Mr. District Attorney. The Court has been giving this matter a great deal of thought.”
“If the Court please,” Hamilton Burger pleaded desperately, “I have a good case here. I have shown that these diamonds were in the possession of Munroe Baxter when he left the ship. These diamonds next show up in the possession of the defendant—”
“Not in the possession of the defendant,” Mason corrected.
“In an office to which he had a key,” Hamilton Burger snapped.
“The janitor had a key. The scrubwoman had a key. Walter Irving had a key.”
“Exactly,” Judge Hartley said. “You have to show some act of domination over those diamonds by the defendant before he can
be connected with the case. That’s a fundamental part of the case.”
“But, Your Honor, we have shown that act of domination. Two of those diamonds were given to the witness Jordan to compensate her for keeping silent about her letters. We have shown that Munroe Baxter came up and took hold of that towing line which was attached to the heavy fishing rod; that the defendant stabbed him, took the belt containing the diamonds, weighted the body, then towed it away to a point where it could be dropped to the bottom.”
Judge Hartley shook his head. “That is a different matter from the motion as to the testimony of Mae Jordan. However, if we are to give every credence to all of the prosecution’s testimony and all inferences therefrom, as we must do in considering such a motion, there is probably an inference which will be sufficient to defeat the motion. I’ll let the motion be made at this time, and reserve a ruling. Go ahead with your case, Mr. District Attorney.”
Hamilton Burger put Max Dutton back on the stand.
Dutton testified that one of the gems which had been recovered from the blob of chewing gum that had been found fastened to the underside of Mason’s desk was a part of the Baxter collection.
“No questions,” Mason said when Hamilton Burger turned Dutton over for cross-examination.
“That,” Hamiltion Burger announced dramatically and unexpectedly, “finishes the People’s case.”
Mason said, “At this time, Your Honor, I would like to make a motion without the presence of the jury.”
“The jurors will be excused for fifteen minutes,” Judge Hartley said, “during which time you will remember the previous admonition of the Court.”
When the jurors had filed out of court the judge nodded to Perry Mason. “Proceed with your motion.”
“I move that the Court direct and instruct the jury to return a verdict of acquittal,” Mason said, “on the ground that no case has been made out which would sustain a conviction, on the ground that there is no evidence tending to show a homicide, no evidence of the corpus delicti, and no evidence connecting the defendant with the case.”
Judge Hartley said, “I am going to rule against the defense in this case, Mr. Mason. I don’t want to preclude you from argument, but the Court has given this matter very careful consideration. Knowing that such a motion would be made, I want to point out to you that while, as a usual thing, proof of the corpus delicti includes finding the body, under the law of California that is not necessary. Corpus delicti means the body of the crime, not the body of the victim.
“Proof of corpus delicti only shows that a crime has been committed. After the crime has been committed, then it is possible to connect the defendant with that crime by proper proof.
“The corpus delicti, or the crime itself, like any other fact to be established in court, can be proved by circumstantial as well as direct evidence. There can be reasonable inferences deduced from the factual evidence presented.
“Now then, we have evidence which, I admit, is not very robust, which shows that Munroe Baxter, the purported victim, was carrying certain diamonds in his possession. Presumably he would not have parted from those diamonds without a struggle. Those diamonds were subsequently found under circumstances which at least support an inference that they were under the domination and in the possession of the defendant.
“One of the strongest pieces of evidence in this case is the finding of the bloodstained knife in the boat. I am free to admit that if I were a juror I would not be greatly impressed by the testimony of the witness Gilly, and yet a man who has been convicted of a felony, a man who has been convicted of perjury may well tell the truth.
“We have in this state the case of People v. Cullen, 37 California 2nd, 614, 234 Pacific 2nd, 1, holding that it is not essential that the body of the victim actually be found in order to support a homicide conviction.
“One of the most interesting cases ever to come before the bar of any country is the case of Rex v. James Camb. That was, of course, a British case, decided on Monday, April twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred and forty-eight, before the Lord Chief Justice of England.
“That is the famous Durban Castle case in which James Camb, a steward aboard the ship, went to the cabin of a young woman passenger. He was recognized in that cabin. The young woman disappeared and was never seen again. There was no evidence, other than circumstantial evidence, of the corpus delicti, save the testimony of the defendant himself admitting that he had pushed the body through the porthole but claiming that the woman was dead at the time, that she had died from natural causes and he had merely disposed of the body in that way.
“In this case we have, of course, no admission of that sort. But we do have a showing that the defendant sat in a boat, that some huge body, too big in the normal course of things to be a fish, attached itself to the heavy fishing tackle which the defendant was dangling overboard; that the defendant or the defendant’s companion thereupon reached down and stabbed with a knife. A knife was subsequently found in the boat and the knife was smeared with human blood. It was the defendant’s knife. I think, under the circumstances, there is enough of a case here to force the defense to meet the charge, and I think that if the jury should convict upon this evidence, the conviction would stand up.”
Hamilton Burger smiled and said, “I think that if the Court will bear with us, the Court will presently see that a case of murder has been abundantly proved.”
Judge Hartley looked almost suspiciously at the district attorney for a moment, then tightened his lips and said, “Very well. Call the jury.”
Mason turned to his client. “This is it, Jefferson,” he said. “You’re going to have to go on the stand. You have not seen fit to confide in me as your lawyer. You have left me in a position where I have had to undertake the defense of your case with very little assistance from you.
“I think I can prove the witness Mae Jordan lied when she said that you came into the office while she was still there. I have the girl at the cigar counter who will testify that you men did not come in until after the manager of the building was standing down at the elevators. I think once we can prove that she lied in one thing, we can prove that she is to be distrusted in her entire testimony. But that young woman has made a very favorable impression on jury.”
Jefferson merely bowed in a coldly formal way. “Very well,” he said.
“You have a few seconds now,” Mason said. “Do you want to tell me the things that I should know?”
“Certainly,” Jefferson said. “I am innocent. That is all you need to know.”
“Why the devil won’t you confide in me?” Mason asked.
“Because there are certain things that I am not going to tell anyone.”
“In case you are interested,” Mason said, “I know where you were on the night of June fifth, and furthermore, the district attorney knows it, too.”
For a moment Duane Jefferson stiffened, then he turned his face away and said indifferently, “I will answer no questions about the night of June fifth.”
“You won’t,” Mason said, “because I’m not going to ask them on direct examination. Now just remember this one thing: I’m going to ask you where you were during the early morning hours of June sixth. You be damn careful that your answer doesn’t ever get back of the time limit I am setting. Otherwise, the District Attorney is going to rip you to shreds. Your examination is going to be very, very brief.”
“I understand.”
“It will be in the nature of a gesture.”
“Yes, sir, I understand.”
The jury filed into the court and took their seats.
“Are you prepared to go on with you case, Mr. Mason?” Judge Hartley asked.
Mason said, “Yes, Your Honor. I won’t even bother the Court and the jury by wasting time with an opening statement. I am going to rip this tissue of lies and insinuations wide open. My first witness will be Ann Riddle.”
Ann Riddle, the tall, blonde girl who operated the cigar stand, came forward.
&nb
sp; “Do you remember the occasion of the fourteenth of June of this year?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where were you at that time?”
“I was at the cigar stand in the building where you have your offices.”
“Where the South African Gem Importing and Exploration Company also has its offices?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You operate the cigar stand in that building?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you remember an occasion when the manager of the building came down to stand at the elevator with a young woman?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you see the defendant at that time?”
“Yes, sir. The defendant and Mr. Irving, his associate, were returning from lunch. They—”
“Now just a minute,” Mason said. “You don’t know they were returning from lunch.”
“No, sir.”
“All right, please confine your statements to what happened.”
“Well, they were entering the building. The manager was standing there. One of the men—I think it was Mr. Irving, but I can’t remember for sure—started to walk over to the manager of the building, then saw that he was intent upon something else, so he turned away. The two men entered the elevator.”
“This was after the alarm had been given about the burglary?” Mason asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“You may inquire,” Mason said to Hamilton Burger.
Hamilton Burger smiled. “I have no questions.”
“I will call the defendant, Duane Jefferson, to the stand,” Mason said.
Duane Jefferson, cool and calm, got up and walked slowly to the witness stand. For a moment he didn’t look at the jury, then when he did deign to glance at them, it was with an air of superiority bordering on contempt. “The damn fool!” Mason whispered under his breath.
Hamilton Burger tilted back in his swivel chair, he interlaced his fingers back of his head, winked at one of his deputies, and a broad smile suffused his face.
“Did you kill Munroe Baxter?” Mason asked.
“No, sir.”
The Case of the Terrified Typist Page 15
