The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

by The Case of the Borrowed Brunette (retail) (epub)

  “But,” said Judge Lindale, “the witness Dixon lifted the lid off—must have, in order to take the gun out. If he had seen the gun there on top of the garbage he would have picked it up and not ordered the garbage all dumped out.”

  “Exactly,” Mason resumed. “That, of course, is why I examined the witnesses in the way I did.”

  “Have you,” the judge asked him, “checked on the matter of when further lots of garbage are deposited?”

  “We have, Your Honor. Our information is that on that day no additional lots were deposited from two in the afternoon until seven-fifty at night.”

  “Has the prosecution made any such check?” Judge Lindale asked.

  “The prosecution has not,” Gulling said, with increasing irritation. “The prosecution has enough evidence right now to convict both of these defendants in front of a jury, let alone have them bound over.”

  “I understand,” Judge Lindale said, “and the eventual disposition of the case may be quite another matter. But the Court calls to the attention of Counsel that this is a case involving a charge of first-degree murder. If there is any legitimate conflict in the evidence, it would seem that the prosecution ought to be as anxious to investigate as the defense is. It appears to this Court obvious that, considering the evidence as it now stands, the defendant Winters could not have thrust the weapon down deep into that garbage can. I assume that it has been identified as the murder weapon?”

  “It has, Your Honor.”

  “Then I suggest that we continue this case until tomorrow morning,” Judge Lindale said; “and that the prosecution, with the aid of the police, give special attention to ascertaining the facts about that garbage can and whether more garbage was added between two-twenty in the afternoon and the time when the gun was discovered. Court is adjourned.”

  Harry Gulling pushed back his chair and rose from the table usually occupied by the prosecution counsel. His manner was grim and determined as he marched across to the defense table.

  “Mr. Mason,” he said crisply.

  Mason got up and turned to face him.

  “I had hoped that before evening the case would have been sufficiently presented so that all of the facts would be before the Court and the public, and the defendants bound over.”

  Mason merely nodded, watching the man in cautious appraisal.

  “Unfortunately,” Gulling went on, “owing to your tactics the situation has changed. You have confused the issues as well as the Court, and this has to some extent changed my own plans.”

  Mason still said nothing.

  “Only to some extent, however.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Mason saw two newspaper photographers holding their cameras in readiness.

  “I feel,” Gulling went on, “that it is only fair to tell you now that my basic strategy has not been changed. I hand you herewith, Mr. Perry Mason, a subpoena to appear before the Grand Jury of this county at the hour of seven this evening.” And he pushed a paper at Mason.

  Simultaneously the synchronized flashbulbs of two cameras flared into brilliance as photographers recorded the serving of the subpoena.

  “Thank you,” Mason said, and calmly pocketed it.

  “And I warn you, Mason,” Gulling went on, as the photographers hurried away to get their pictures developed in time to make the afternoon editions, “you’re going to be faced with a charge of perjury on the one hand or of being an accessory on the other. I now have evidence indicating that you picked up Eva Martell at the streetcar on the evening of the murder and spirited her away. I think that a certain party who runs a rooming house, and who has apparently been trying to protect you, is guilty of perjury. Investigation now discloses that she is a former client of yours whom you successfully defended some time ago. I feel it is only fair to tell you this much, so that you will be prepared.”

  Mason advanced a step. “All right,” he said, his face granite-hard, “you’ve prepared me. Now I’ll prepare you. You’ve made a personal issue out of this. You’ve walked into court on this case personally. I assume you’ll be with the Grand Jury tonight to examine me personally. You have a political job. I haven’t. You can turn the heat on me, and I can take it. If I turn the heat on you, I don’t think you can take it.”

  “Right now,” Gulling said, “I am the one who is in the position to turn on the heat, and it’s going to be very hot, Mr. Mason!”

  19

  MASON, PACING back and forth across the floor of his office, said to Paul Drake, “The thing that bothers me in this case, Paul, is Mae Bagley.”

  “What about her?”

  “She tried to protect me. They came down on her like a ton of bricks without giving her any warning. As soon as that taxi driver told where he had picked Eva Martell up, the cops dashed down and grabbed Mae Bagley.”

  “And she told them she’d never seen Eva Martell before?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Was she under oath?” Drake asked.

  “Not then she wasn’t. Shortly afterward they dragged her up before the Grand Jury, and she was under oath then, of course. They’ll probably examine her again tonight.”

  “Shucks, Perry, no matter how crude her first story was, have her stick to it. Of course she can simply refuse to answer on the ground that doing so might incriminate her.”

  “It isn’t that simple,” Mason said. “Gulling is the type of technical-minded chap with a very exalted opinion of himself and an exaggerated idea of his own importance. He’s shrewd enough to know all the technical angles, and he’s getting ready to throw the book at everyone.”

  “Well, they’ve evidently got the deadwood on you now, Perry. They know that you took Eva Martell to that rooming house. Can’t you show that Gulling gave you until noon to produce her; that you told her to surrender herself to the police well within the time limit given you by Gulling—and let it be your word and hers against what is merely Gulling’s insinuation that she wasn’t on the way to surrender herself when she was arrested? It seems to me you could beat the case that way, hands down.”

  “That isn’t the point,” Mason said. “Mae Bagley tried to protect me. She said that she hadn’t had Eva Martell in her house. Now then, the minute she changes her story they get her on two counts. First, for failing to keep an accurate register of the people in her rooming house, and second, because of her previous false statement. They also make her an accessory after the fact in hiding a person accused of murder. And if I try to protect myself by telling what did happen, I’ve put Mae Bagley in a spot. The minute I open up, I’ve hooked that Bagley woman on all sorts of charges.”

  “Oh, oh!” Drake said.

  “And when I get in front of that Grand Jury, I’ve got to try to talk my way out or else take a beating.”

  “Can’t you claim professional privilege?”

  “Only as to what my client may have said to me. And there’s that twelve o’clock surrender deadline. . . .”

  “Can’t you show that that’s just an absurd technicality?”

  Mason grinned. “I’ve been throwing technicalities at the district attorney’s office for a long time now, and I’d put myself in a pretty poor light if I started yelling that I was being crucified on a technicality!”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Drake admitted. “What’s the idea of planting the purse so Gulling would find it, Perry?”

  Mason grinned. “I’m letting Gulling interpret the law, Paul.”

  “What law?”

  “The portion of the law which defines what is a reasonable time. I may not have to use it, but knowing him as I do, I realize he’ll try to hook me on some trivial offense in case I should wriggle off the hook on this other charge. . . . However, he’s got all of us pretty well hooked on that other stuff, what with all the evidence he’s turned up.

  “Of course,” Mason went on, “the situation would be simplified if it weren’t for that wallet. Because the gun testimony is considerably mixed up by this time.”

  “Di
dn’t Adelle Winters throw the gun into that garbage can?”

  “I’m beginning to think she didn’t.”

  “Then what’s the explanation?”

  “She is lying about the gun. She didn’t have it, and it never was up there on the sideboard, and she didn’t take it with her. But she knew someone who did have it, and that person had agreed to plant the gun in the garbage can. According to my idea right now, Adelle Winters merely looked inside to see whether it was there.”

  “That sounds rather complicated, Perry.”

  Mason suddenly turned to Della Street. “Get the Lorenzo Hotel for me, Della. I want to talk with somebody who knows about the records that have been kept there.”

  “What are you getting at, Perry?” Drake asked as Della Street put through the call. “Do you think that Adelle Winters had some accomplice at the hotel?”

  “One thing in the case has never been explained,” said Mason. “It’s simple, obvious, and significant—and therefore everyone has completely overlooked it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How did it happen that Adelle Winters and Eva Martell went to the Lorenzo Hotel in the first place?” Mason asked.

  “Well, they wanted to go to some public place. They didn’t want to go home, and . . .”

  “There are lots of hotels,” Mason said. “Why pick the Lorenzo in particular?”

  “Well, they had to pick one of them.”

  “But what made them hit on that one? I—”

  “They’re on the line,” Della Street told him.

  Mason picked up the telephone and said, “This is Perry Mason, the lawyer. I want to find out something about a former guest of the hotel.”

  “Yes, Mr. Mason, we’ll be glad to give you any assistance we can.”

  “I want you please to look back through your records and let me know whether an Adelle Winters ever had a room there.”

  “I can tell you right now, Mr. Mason. I saw her name in the papers, and of course there’s the fact that the police found a weapon here. Perhaps you didn’t know it, but at one time she worked as a waitress in the dining room here. It’s called the Lorenzo Café. It’s operated under separate management, though in connection with the hotel.”

  “How long ago?” Mason asked.

  “A little over a year ago.”

  “How long was she there?”

  “Three months.”

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Yes, sir, the district attorney’s office knows it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they asked me and I told them.”

  “When?”

  “Day before yesterday.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said. “Have they subpoenaed you as a witness?”

  “Not me, but the proprietor of the café. Would you like to talk with him?”

  “Definitely not,” Mason said. “Thanks for the information. Good-by.”

  As he hung up he met Paul Drake’s dismayed eyes.

  “Well, there you are,” Mason said. “That’s that! I know now why the two women went to the Lorenzo Hotel, and also how Mrs. Winters knew where the garbage pails were kept. She worked there for three months about a year ago!”

  “She did?” Drake exclaimed. “I see. But what about the gun?”

  “According to Folsom, she raised the cover and looked inside. Now then, the gun was found under quite a layer of garbage. Suppose she is lying all along the line? Suppose, as I suggested a few minutes ago, she didn’t leave the gun behind on the apartment sideboard? Suppose someone else had the gun? Suppose this person phoned her and said that he or she had killed Hines and tossed the gun into that garbage can? Now, who could have killed Hines and then been able to count on the coöperation of Adelle Winters?”

  “Eva Martell,” Drake replied promptly.

  Mason paused to give that consideration. “You may have something there, Paul. But I’d be more inclined to say it was— Just when was the noontime garbage put in there, Paul?”

  “We’ve checked up on that for you. It was at two-ten that the kitchen man came out with a big tubful of garbage, which he dumped into the middle garbage can. The police have been checking up on him—trying to get him to say he might be mistaken about the hour, that it might have been some time after two-twenty. But the man insists that it was exactly ten minutes past two; he’s sure, because he kept looking at the clock—he had a date at three and he was trying to get cleaned up and out of there and change his clothes in time to keep that date. And here’s a strange thing: he can’t swear to it, but he thinks the pail was about two-thirds full of garbage when he finished dumping in his tubful.

  “Get what that means, Perry? The gun must have been in there before two-ten, and the last lot of garbage put in must have covered it up. The man was in a hurry, so he just raised the lid and dumped the stuff in. And five or ten minutes later, when Adelle Winters looked inside, the gun wasn’t visible because it was covered over.”

  Mason exclaimed, “Paul, if we can show that the gun was actually in the garbage pail at two-ten, we’ve got an alibi! Because Adelle Winters didn’t reach the hotel until two-fifteen. How about the time of death? What did you learn about that?”

  “Autopsy surgeon says some time between one o’clock and three o’clock in the afternoon. Can’t get any closer than that.”

  “Well,” Mason went on, “Eva Martell was in that apartment until five minutes of two. They went out of the apartment house at eleven minutes past. Which gives a period of sixteen minutes between their leaving the apartment itself and their departure from the building.”

  By this time Drake was excited, too. “Let’s look at it now from the other angle. Who do we know of who could have walked into that apartment naturally—gone in quietly without rousing comment? In the first place, Helen Reedley; she has a key to the apartment. Next, Carlotta Tipton; she could have tapped on the door and Hines would have let her in. Then, of course, there was the maid . . .”

  “And,” Mason said, “I’m inclined to add Arthur Clovis to that list. I imagine that he had a key to the apartment, and that that’s one of the things that get him all churned up whenever the subject is mentioned. I don’t suppose there’s any way of finding out for sure, is there, Paul?”

  “Not unless we could think up some way of frisking him, and that would be dangerous. Anyhow, if he ever had a key he’s probably ditched it by now,” Paul Drake added.

  “Well,” Mason went on, “how about Helen Reedley? We don’t know where she was, around the time the murder was committed. She says she was looking for Hines in the restaurant, that she missed him there and tried telephoning. Suppose she talked with Carlotta, and suppose Carlotta told her that Hines was up in the other apartment? . . . No, Carlotta’s not likely to have done that. . . . But when you come right down to it, Paul, there are a lot of people who can’t account for their time between say one forty-five and two fifteen.”

  Drake nodded.

  “Not that that simplifies my problem much.” Mason sounded grim. “The police are going to get after me in the matter of concealing Eva Martell after I knew she was perhaps implicated in the murder. And they’ll get after Mae Bagley for making a false statement, for failing to keep a register, and for being an accessory. . . . Tell you what you do, Paul. Get a likely looking operative to put on some bib overalls, take a satchel, go around to various apartments in the building where Arthur Clovis lives, knock on the doors and announce loudly that he’s in the key-manufacturing business and that he’s trying to get old keys for use as blanks. Have him say he’ll pay five cents apiece for old keys.”

  “But you can’t make a new key from an old one, Perry—you know that yourself!”

  “That’s just the point,” Mason said. “Clovis is the dreamy type. He hasn’t very much executive ability. Put yourself in his shoes. Someone who looks like a key man comes to the door and says he’s collecting old keys. He has a satchel open that is half full of keys. He offer
s five cents apiece. Now suppose Clovis has a key that is burning a hole in his pocket. Here’s a chance to get rid of it. He isn’t going to stop to question the other chap’s statement. He’ll toss the key into the satchel, take his nickel, and think he’s done a good job!”

  “What will the fellow have in the satchel?” Drake asked. “I can’t scare up that many keys . . .”

  “Get some iron washers,” Mason told him; “something the fellow can rattle around inside it.”

  “Okay, Perry, I’ll try it. It may work.”

  “You’ll have to get busy,” Mason said, looking at his watch. “Time is running out damn fast.”

  “I can make a stab at it within an hour by using the telephone, and—”

  “And that’s twice too long,” Mason interrupted. “Have a man with a satchel up there inside of thirty minutes.”

  Drake groaned. “If I’d said thirty minutes in the first place, you’d have cut it to fifteen. Let me get out of here, Della, and get to work before he thinks of something else.”

  Drake had lost his drawl. His long legs moved in swift strides as he crossed the office and jerked the door open.

  When he had gone, Mason looked at his watch, then glanced across at Della Street. “No need to wait, Della.”

  “I’ll stay on the job,” she said. “You may get an idea.”

  “Wish I could get one! Hang it, Della—there’s something in the case, some central point that’s eluding me.” He resumed his pacing of the floor.

  “How about calls, Chief?” Della asked. “I hear the telephone in the other office buzzing.”

  “Let’s see who it is,” Mason said. “If it’s a client, tell him I’m not in.”

  Della Street went out to the switchboard and returned in a moment to say, “It’s Cora Felton. She says she has to talk with you, that it’s very important. I’ve put her on this line.”

  Mason picked up the receiver on his desk telephone. “Hello, Cora. What is it?”

  “Mr. Mason, I’m so sorry. I—”

  “That’s all right, I was up here working on the case anyway.”

  “No, no—I mean so sorry about what’s happened.”