The Case Of The Howling Dog pm-4

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  "What will happen when you send this to The Chronicle?" she asked.

  "It's a cinch," he said. "They'll smash up that floor."

  "How will they do it?"

  "They'll just do it, that's all."

  "Will they get permission from anybody?"

  "Don't be silly," he told her. "Forbes bought the place and owns it. He's dead. Bessie Forbes is his wife. If she's acquitted of this murder, she'll inherit his property."

  "If she isn't?" asked Della Street.

  "She's going to be," he told her grimly.

  "What makes you think there's a body under there?" she asked.

  "Listen," he told her, "let's look at this thing from a reasonable standpoint and quit being stampeded by a lot of facts that don't mean anything. You remember when Arthur Cartright first came to us?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "You remember what he said? He wanted a will made. He wanted a will made so that the property would be taken by the woman who was at present living as the wife of Clinton Foley, in the house on Milpas Drive."

  "Yes."

  "All right. Then he made a will and sent it to me, and the will didn't read that way."

  "Why didn't it?" she asked.

  "Because," he said, "he knew that there was no use leaving his property to a woman who was already dead. In some way he'd found out that she was dead."

  "Then he didn't murder her?"

  "I'm not saying that, but I don't think he did."

  "But isn't it a crime to forge a confession of this sort?"

  "Under certain circumstances, it may be," Perry Mason said.

  "I can't see under what circumstances it wouldn't be," she told him.

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

  "And you think that Arthur Cartright knew that his wife was dead?"

  "Yes, he'd been devoted to her. He'd been searching for her for ten months. He'd been living next door to her for two months, spying on the man he hated, and trying to find out if his wife was happy. He made up his mind he was going to kill Clinton Forbes. He felt that he would be executed for that murder. He wanted his property to go to his wife; not to Forbes' wife, but to Paula Cartright, but he didn't care to make his will in favor of Paula Cartright before he had committed the murder, because he thought that would bring an investigation. So he made his will, or wanted to make his will, so that it would transfer the property to the woman, under the name of Evelyn Foley.

  "You can see what he had in mind. He wanted to hush up any scandal. He intended to kill Foley and to plead guilty to murder and be executed. He wanted his will made so that his property would go to the woman who was apparently the widow of the man he had murdered, and he wanted to do it in such a way that no questions would be asked, and her real identity would never be known. He did that to spare her the disgrace of having the various facts become public."

  She stood perfectly still, her eyes staring down at the tips of her shoes.

  "Yes," she said, "I think I understand."

  "And then," said Perry Mason, "something happened, so that Arthur Cartright changed his mind. He knew that there was no use leaving the property to his wife, Paula. He wanted to leave it to some one because he didn't expect to remain alive. He had undoubtedly been in touch with Bessie Forbes, and knew that she was in the city, so he left the property to her."

  "What makes you say he had been in touch with Bessie Forbes?" asked Della Street.

  "Because the taxi driver says that Bessie Forbes told him to telephone Parkcrest 62945, which was Cartright's number, and tell Arthur to go next door to Clint's place. That shows that she knew where Cartright was, and that Cartright knew that she knew."

  "I see," said Della Street, and was silent for several seconds.

  "Are you certain," asked Della Street, "that Mrs. Cartright didn't run away with Arthur Cartright and leave Clinton Forbes, just as she had left Cartright in Santa Barbara?"

  "Yes," he said, "I'm virtually certain."

  "What makes you so certain?"

  "The note," he said, "that was left wasn't in the handwriting of Paula Cartright."

  "You're certain about that?"

  "Virtually," he said. "It's approximately the same handwriting as that which appeared on the telegraph blank that was sent from Midwick. I've had samples of Mrs. Cartright's handwriting sent from Santa Barbara, and the two don't check."

  "Does the district attorney's office know that?" she asked.

  "I don't think so," he told her.

  Della Street stared at Perry Mason thoughtfully.

  "Was it Thelma Benton's handwriting?" she asked.

  "I've had several specimens of Thelma Benton's handwriting, and those specimens seem entirely different from the handwriting of the note and the telegraph blank."

  "Mrs. Forbes?" she asked.

  "No, it isn't her handwriting. I had Mrs. Forbes write me a letter from the jail."

  "There's an editorial in The Chronicle," she said, "did you see it?"

  "No," he said. "What is it?"

  "It states that in view of the dramatic surprise that impeaches the testimony of the taxicab driver, it is your solemn duty to put your client on the stand and let her explain her connection with the case. The editor says that this air of mystery is all right for a hardened criminal who is being tried for a crime of which every one knows he is guilty, and who desires to assert his constitutional rights, but not for a woman like Mrs. Forbes.

  "I didn't see the editorial," said Perry Mason.

  "Will it make any difference in your plans?"

  "Certainly not," he told her. "I'm trying this case. I'm exercising my judgment for the best interests of my client; not the judgment of some newspaper editor."

  "All of the evening papers," she said, "comment upon the consummate skill with which you manipulated things so that the denouement came as a dramatic finale to the day's trial, and managed to impeach the testimony of the taxi driver before the prosecution had even built up its case."

  "It wasn't any particular skill on my part," Perry Mason said. "Claude Drumm walked into it. He started to strong-arm my witness. I wouldn't stand for it. I grabbed her and took her into the judge's chambers to make a protest. I knew that Drumm was going to claim I'd been guilty of unprofessional conduct, and I wanted to have it out with him right then and there."

  "What did Judge Markham think?" she asked.

  "I don't know," he told her, "and I don't give a damn. I know what my rights are and I stood on them. I'm fighting to protect a client."

  Abruptly she came to him, put her hand on his shoulders.

  "Chief," she said, "I doubted you once. I just want you to know that I'll never do it again. I'm for you, right or wrong."

  He smiled, patted her on the shoulder.

  "All right," he said, "take a taxi and go home. If anybody should want me, you don't know where to find me."

  She nodded, walked to the door, and this time went out without hesitating.

  Perry Mason waited until she had gone down in the elevator. Then he switched out the lights, put on his overcoat, sealed the letter, took the portable typewriter and went to his car. He drove to another part of the city, posted the letter in a mail box, and then took a winding road which led to a reservoir in the hills back of the city. He drove along the bank of the reservoir, slowed his car, took the portable typewriter and flung it into the reservoir. By the time the water splashed up in a miniature geyser, Perry Mason was stepping on the throttle of his automobile.

  CHAPTER XIX

  RADIATORS were still hissing comfortably in the building when Perry Mason sat down with Paul Drake.

  "Paul," he said, "I want a man who's willing to take a chance."

  "I've got lots of them," Drake said. "What do you want?"

  "I want this man to call up Thelma Benton, say that he's a reporter of The Chronicle; that the city editor has given an okay to pay ten thousand dollars for exclusive rights to publish her diary if it's as represented.


  "I want him to make an appointment to meet Thelma Benton where he can inspect the diary. She may, or may not, have some one with her. I doubt if she'll surrender the diary for inspection. But she'll let him look at it.

  "I want that man to turn to the date that's marked October 18th, and tear the leaf from the book."

  "What's on that leaf that you want?" asked the detective.

  "I don't know."

  "She'll make a holler."

  "Naturally."

  "What can they do to the man who does that?"

  "Not very much," Perry Mason said. "They may try to throw a scare into him, but that's about all they can do."

  "Couldn't she sue for damages if the thing was made public?"

  "I'm not going to make it public," he said. "I'm simply going to let her know that I have it."

  "Look here," Drake said, "it's none of my business, and you certainly don't need me to tell you how to practice law, but you're skating on damned thin ice. I've told you that before, and I'm telling it to you again."

  "I know I'm skating on thin ice," Perry Mason said morosely, "but there's nothing they can get me for. I claim that I'm within my rights on everything I've done. Newspapers do things twice as bad as that every day in the week and nobody says anything to them."

  "You're not a newspaper," Drake pointed out.

  "I know I'm not," said Mason. "But I'm a lawyer and I'm representing a client who is entitled to a fair trial. By God, I'm going to see that she gets it!"

  "Does all this spectacular and dramatic stuff constitute your idea of a fair trial?"

  "Yes. My idea of a fair trial is to bring out the facts. I'm going to bring out the facts."

  "All of the facts, or just the facts that are favorable to your client?"

  "Well," said Perry Mason, grinning, "I'm not going to try the case for the district attorney, if that's what you mean; that's up to him."

  Paul Drake scraped back his chair.

  "You'll defend us if we get into a jam over this?" he asked.

  "Certainly," Perry Mason told him. "I wouldn't get you into anything that I wouldn't go into myself."

  "The trouble with you," the detective told him, "is that you go into too darn much. Incidentally, you're getting the reputation of being a legal wizard."

  "How do you mean - a wizard?" Mason asked.

  "They figure that you can pull a verdict out of the hat, just like a magician pulls out a rabbit," Drake told him. "Your methods aren't orthodox; they're dramatic and effective."

  "We're a dramatic people," Perry Mason said slowly. "We're not like the English. The English want dignity and order. We want the dramatic and the spectacular. It's a national craving. We're geared to a rapid rate of thought. We want to have things move in a spectacular manner."

  "Well, that's the way you do it, all right," Drake said, getting to his feet. "That stunt this afternoon was certainly clever. You've got every newspaper in town featuring, not the case against Bessie Forbes, but the spectacular manner in which the testimony of the taxi driver was virtually discredited. Every newspaper in the city acts on the assumption that the entire testimony of the cab driver is valueless."

  "Well, it is," said Perry Mason.

  "And yet," Drake told him thoughtfully, "you know as well as I do that Bessie Forbes actually went out there in that taxicab. She was the woman who went to the house."

  "That," said the lawyer, "is a matter of conjecture and speculation unless the district attorney introduces some evidence to prove it."

  "Where's he going to get the evidence from, now that his cab driver has been discredited?"

  "That," Perry Mason assured him, "is something for the district attorney to worry about."

  "All right," Drake told him, "I'm on my way. Is there anything else you want?"

  "I think," said Perry Mason slowly, "that will be all for a while."

  "God knows, it's enough!" said Paul Drake slowly, and walked out of the office.

  Perry Mason tilted back in his swivel chair and closed his eyes. He remained motionless, save for the tips of his fingers, which drummed gently upon the arms of his chair. He was sitting in that position when a key sounded in the lock of the outer door, and Frank Everly entered the office.

  Frank Everly was the law clerk who looked up routine legal matters for Perry Mason, and sat with him in the trial of cases. He was young, eager, ambitious, and filled with a boundless enthusiasm.

  "Can I talk with you, Chief?" he asked.

  Perry Mason opened his eyes and frowned.

  "Yes," he said, "come in. What is it you want?"

  Frank Everly sat down on the edge of the chair and seemed ill at ease.

  "Go on," said Perry Mason. "What is it?"

  "I wanted to ask you," said Frank Everly, "as a personal favor, to put Bessie Forbes on the witness stand."

  "What's the idea?" asked Mason curiously.

  "I have been listening to a lot of talk," said Everly. "Not ordinary gossip, you understand, but the talk of lawyers, of judges and newspaper men."

  Mason smiled patiently.

  "All right, Everly, what did you hear?"

  "If you don't put that woman on the witness stand, and she's convicted, it's going to mean that your reputation will be ruined," he said.

  "All right," Perry Mason told him; "it'll be ruined then."

  "But don't you see?" said Everly. "She's innocent. Everybody knows that she's innocent, now. The case against her is founded entirely on circumstantial evidence. All that it needs is a denial from her and an explanation, and the jury will render a verdict of not guilty as a matter of course."

  "You really feel that way about it?" asked Perry Mason curiously.

  "Of course I feel that way about it."

  "And you think it's a shame I won't let her get on the stand and tell her story?"

  "I think it's a responsibility that you've no right to take, sir," said Everly. "Please don't misunderstand me, but I'm talking to you as one attorney to another. You have a duty to your client; a duty to your profession; and a duty to yourself."

  "Suppose she gets on the stand, tells her story, and then is convicted?" said Perry Mason.

  "But she couldn't be," said Everly. "Everybody sympathizes with her, and now that the evidence of the taxi driver has blown up, there's nothing to it."

  Perry Mason stared at the clerk steadily.

  "Frank," he said, "I don't know anything that has cheered me up as much as this talk with you."

  "You mean you're going to put her on the stand?"

  "No, I mean I'm not going to put her on the stand; not under any circumstances."

  "Why?" asked Frank Everly.

  "Because," said Perry Mason slowly, "you think she's innocent now. Everybody thinks she's innocent. That means the jury thinks she's innocent. If I put her on the witness stand I can't make the jury think she's any more innocent. If I don't put her on, they may think she's got a dumb lawyer, but they'll return a verdict of not guilty.

  "Now, I'm going to tell you something, young man. There are lots of ways of trying a lawsuit. There's the slow, tedious way, indulged in by lawyers who haven't any particular plan of campaign, other than to walk into court and snarl over objections, haggle over technicalities, and drag the facts out so interminably that no one knows just what it's all about. Then there's the dramatic method of trying a lawsuit. That's the method I try to follow.

  "Somewhere along the line the district attorney is going to rest his case. I'm going to try and stampede the situation so that when the district attorney rests his case the sympathies of the jury are all going to be with the defendant. Then I'm going to throw the case right into the lap of the jury right then. They'll return a verdict, without even stopping to think it over, if it goes right."

  "What if it doesn't go right?" asked Everly.

  "If it doesn't go right," said Perry Mason, "I'll probably lose my reputation as a trial lawyer."

  "But you've got no right to jeopardize that," said Frank Ev
erly.

  "The hell I haven't," Perry Mason told him. "I've got no right not to."

  He got to his feet and switched out the lights.

  "Come on, son," he said, "let's go home."

  CHAPTER XX