The Case of the Troubled Trustee pm-78

by Erle Stanley Gardner

"Are you familiar with the location of tee number seven?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "In order that there may be no mistake about it," Mason said, "I show you this map which has been introduced in evidence and ask you to notice the cross street nearest your house and the location of tee number seven."

  "Yes, sir, I see it."

  "About how far are you located from tee number seven?"

  "About a hundred and fifty yards."

  "Cross-examine," Mason said.

  Hamilton Burger, on his feet, managed to get an expression of puzzled perplexity on his face as he turned to the judge and said, "If the Court please, I move to strike out this entire evidence as being incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial."

  Judge Alvarado turned to Mason. "Do you care to explain your reason for calling this witness, Mr. Mason?"

  "I will be glad to," Mason said. "The autopsy surgeon has testified that death occurred between ninethirty in the evening and two-thirty A.M. the following morning.

  "On cross-examination, the autopsy surgeon admitted that a doctor couldn't fix the time of death as accurately as if one was standing by with a stopwatch. Death could conceivably have occurred at nine o'clock in the evening.

  "The defendant has testified that Palmer was dead when the defendant arrived on the scene. Death could well have occurred an hour earlier."

  Hamilton Burger laughed and then apparently tried to control himself with an effort. "All of this," he said, "is predicated upon the fact that somebody heard an automobile backfire or a distant sonic boom or a tire blowing ouu and under the persuasive influence of counsel's suggestion has been led to believe that it was a shot. And now he wants this jury to believe not only that it was a shot, but that it was the fatal shot. I submit, Your Honor, that this evidence is far too nebulous and fantastic, far too conjectural to even be cluttering up the record, let alone influencing the jury."

  Judge Alvarado shook his head. "I think your argument goes to the weight rather than the admissibility of the evidence, Mr. Prosecutor. The Court is going to allow the evidence to remain in. You may, of course, further amplify your point by cross-examination."

  Hamilton Burger heaved a sigh, as much as to indicate to the jury the tribulations with which a district attorney had to contend, then turned to the witness. "How do you know it was nine o'clock?" he asked.

  "I was out on the porch smoking and suddenly realized it was time for a favorite television program."

  "What kind of a program?"

  "A newscaster and analyst."

  "You say it's a favorite of yours?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you listen every night?"

  "Almost every night, yes."

  "And is that the only program that you listen to?"

  ''Oh, no."

  "You listen to others?"

  "Certainly."

  "What is the nature of these other programs you listen to?"

  "Well, I have two or three favorite newscasters."

  "Such as what?"

  "Well, I have Carleton Kenny. I try to listen to him every night."

  "Oh, yes," Hamilton Burger said, "he comes on at eleven o'clock?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And what others?"

  "Well, two or three others."

  "What was the program you were listening to at nine o'clock when you heard this sound which you took to be a shot?"

  "I was listening to Ralph Woodley."

  "Woodley?" Hamilton Burger said.

  "No, no," the witness corrected himself, "I meant George Tillman."

  "Now, just a minute," Hamilton Burger said. "You said first it was Woodley you were listening to."

  "Well, I thought it was. That is, I suddenly realized-"

  Hamilton Burger said, "You suddenly realized that one program comes on at nine o'clock and the other program comes on at ten. You said that you were listening to Woodley. He comes on at ten, does he not?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And when I asked you to give the program you were listening to, the name Woodley slipped out before you thought."

  "It was an inadvertent slip of the tongue."

  "But when I asked you, you said before you had any opportunity to think that you were listening to Woodley's program."

  "Yes."

  "Then the shot could have been at ten o'clock."

  "No, sir, the shot I heard was at nine o'clock. It was just before I went in to tune in the nine o'clock program, the last thirteen minutes of it."

  Hamilton Burger, his manner suddenly magnanimous, said, "Now, Mr. Holbrook, I don't want to take any unfair advantage of you. I want you to listen carefully. Suppose I should assure you, as I do now assure you, that two reputable citizens who lived even closer to the seventh tee than you do are prepared to swear that shortly after ten o'clock, just as the Woodley program was going on the air, they heard a single pistol shot, or a sound which they interpreted as being a pistol shot coming from the direction of tee number seven. Would that testimony change your recollection and would you then state that the sound you heard, which you took to be a shot, was at ten o'clock rather than nine o'clock?"

  George Holbrook seemed for a moment completely baffled. Then he slowly shook his head. "I thought it was nine o'clock," he said.

  "I know you did," Hamilton Burger said, his manner suddenly sympathetic, "but you could have been mistaken. There was a lot of excitement that night. You went to pick up your wife's sister?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And how did it happen that you didn't report the matter to the police the next morning when you read of the murder?"

  "I didn't read of the murder," Holbrook said. "We decided to take a trip and we threw some things together late that night, got three or four hours' sleep and took off at daylight the next morning."

  "Oh, yes," Hamilton Burger said. "And how long were you gone, Mr. Holbrook?"

  "Three weeks."

  "And you didn't know anything about the murder all the time you were gone?"

  "I knew about it but didn't know that it had taken place on the golf links right across from our front porch, so to speak."

  "So you didn't realize the importance of this sound you had heard until some three weeks later?"

  "Yes, sir-sometime later."

  "And then you tried to reconstruct in your mind the exact date that you had heard this shot?"

  "Yes, sir.''

  "And the time you had heard the shot?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "After an interval of three weeks?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Three full weeks?"

  "Yes, sir.''

  "And it could have been while you were listening to the Woodley program, just as you said when I first asked you?"

  "Yes, I thought it was the- No, no, wait a minute. The Woodley program comes on at ten o'clock. This was at nine o'clock."

  Hamilton Burger smiled indulgently. "If the other witnesses fix it as being when the Woodley program was on the air, would you change your testimony once more, Mr. Holbrook, and again say that it was at the time of the Woodley program?"

  "Well, I… I thought it was at nine o'clock."

  "You thought it was," Hamilton Burger said, his manner suddenly stern, and then leaning forward and fixing the witness with a direct gaze. "You can't swear to it, can you?"

  George Holbrook thought for a long moment, then said, "No, I can't positively swear to it."

  "Thank you," Hamilton Burger said. "That's all."

  Hamilton Burger turned away from the witness, glanced at the jury and for a moment a swift grin came over his features. Then he masked his face as though desperately trying to keep his emotions concealed from the jury.

  "Very well," he said, "that's all."

  Judge Alvarado said, "I have a matter which has been on the calendar for some time set for this hour and it's a matter I have to take care of. I am going to continue this case until tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. During the recess of the Court, the jurors will remember the usual admoni
tion of the Court not to form or express any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, and to refrain from discussing the case among yourselves, and particularly not to let anyone discuss it with you. Court is recessed until ten o'clock tomorrow."

  As the spectators started filing out, Dutton leaned toward Mason. "How did I do," he asked, "-on the stand?"

  Mason, putting papers in his brief case, said, "About the way I expected."

  "You don't sound too enthusiastic."

  Mason shook his head and said, "Go ahead and get a night's sleep and try to forget about the case. No one ever knows what a jury is going to do."

  The lawyer nodded to the bailiff and to the officer who was coming forward to take Dutton into custody, managed a reassuring smile for Della Street, then walked out of the courtroom, his shoulders squared, his manner confident, his chin up, his stomach cold.

  Chapter Twenty

  Back in his office, all of Mason's assurance vanished.

  "Well?" Della Street asked.

  "Get Paul Drake," Mason said. "We've got to do something or our man is going to be convicted of first-degree murder."

  "What can you do?" Della Street asked.

  "We've got to do something," Mason said. "We're going to have to think up something."

  "You think it's that bad?"

  "I know it's that bad. The idea of Dutton bucketshopping the stocks in the trust fund and deliberately deceiving the beneficiary into believing the trust fund was being exhausted just didn't sit well with that jury."

  Della said, "Paul Drake's on his way down here now."

  A few moments later, Drake's code knock sounded on the door, and Della opened it to admit the detective.

  Drake raised inquiring eyebrows and Della shook her head.

  Mason, pacing the floor, was engrossed in thought.

  Drake slipped across to the client's chair and seated himself.

  Mason said, "We've got to pull a rabbit out of the hat, Paul."

  Drake nodded.

  Mason continued his pacing the floor. "Something dramatic. Something that will drive home our contention."

  "How does it look?" Drake asked.

  "You know how it looks," Mason said, without changing the tempo of his stride or even glancing at the detective. "Hamilton Burger has alienated any sympathy the jurors might have had for the defendant. He's mixed up the only witness we had who could give any evidence that would enable us to talk about reasonable doubt."

  "You've licked him so many times in front of a jury," Paul Drake said, "that I think you're being unduly pessimistic this time."

  Mason shook his head. "Usually Hamilton Burger doesn't have a chance to strut his stuff. I get the witness on cross-examination and uncover some point which enables me to prove that the prosecution's theory of the case is erroneous. Before he's ready to rest his case, he doesn't have any case left.

  "This time I've had to go ahead and put witnesses on the stand. Burger has had a chance to cross-examine them. The roles have been reversed. He's ripped my witnesses to pieces."

  "Do you think it's true that he has two witnesses who will swear it was at ten o'clock the shot was heard?"

  "It has to be true," Mason said. "Of course, I'm going to have a chance to cross-examine those witnesses and, believe me, Paul, there's something queer about that."

  "What do you mean?"

  "If they had been as positive as he makes them sound, he'd have put them on the witness stand as part of his case in chief. The fact that he's holding them for rebuttal indicates that he didn't intend to use them unless he had to."

  "Do you think he'll just back away from the question now that he's got our witness confused?" Drake asked.

  "I won't let him," Mason said. "I'm going to insist that he put those two witnesses on the stand and then I'm going to cross-examine them. I may get a break out of it, but I may not. I don't know. All I know is that the way the case looks at present, we've got a defendant who is headed for the gas chamber or for life imprisonment."

  "Any suggestions?" Drake asked.

  "I'm thinking of one right now."

  "Such as what?"

  Mason said, "Paul, start pulling wires. I want to get the latest and best metal detector that money can buy. I understand there are some new ones that are very sensitive."

  "You mean mine detectors?" Drake asked.

  "So-called," Mason said.

  "And what do we do?"

  "We go out to the Barclay Country Club and we start sweeping around the grass out in the vicinity of the seventh tee."

  "Looking for what?"

  "An expended cartridge."

  Drake said, "Don't be silly, Perry! The murder was committed with a revolver. A revolver doesn't eject a fired cartridge."

  "But a person who fires a revolver could eject a cartridge," Mason said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "If the murder was committed at nine o'clock, then someone who wanted a Patsy could have arranged to have Dutton out there at ten o'clock and then fired a shot the minute Duttoq's car hove into sight at the golf club. Then he could have tossed the gun to the ground beside the corpse and sneaked back down through the low places where he wouldn't show against the silhouetted horizon and made his escape, leaving Dutton to hold the sack."

  "And so?" Drake asked.

  "And so," Mason said, "we go out on the golf course and start exploring with a mine detector."

  "This is right during the busy time of the afternoon as far as that golf course is concerned," Drake said. "Court adjourned early and if we go out there now, we'll interfere with a lot of doctors and dentists, bankers and professional men playing their mid-week round of golf."

  Mason nodded.

  "They'd kick us out," Drake said.

  "Well?" Mason asked.

  Drake looked at him and grinned. "You mean you'd like to attract attention?"

  "Why not?"

  "It wouldn't prove anything," Drake said.

  "But the fact that we were out there looking for an extra shell would show that we attached considerable importance to Holbrook's testimony."

  Drake thought the matter over for a while, then grinned. "I suppose you wouldn't object if the newspaper reporters knew about it?"

  "Not at all," Mason said. "In fact, anything that we do might become quite newsworthy."

  "The judge has instructed the jury not to read the newspapers," Drake said.

  Mason looked at him and grinned, then turned to Della Street. "This, Della," he said, "is business. Go to the most exclusive, most expensive place in the city where you can get a sport outfit which will attract the roving masculine eye. Get a golfing outfit. Money is no object, but it has to be a city editor's dream-one that will look so good in a photograph, and on you, it would make a page one placement."

  Della Street jumped to her feet. "Watch me go through that door," she said.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A rather dignified group of afternoon golfers watched Perry Mason, Paul Drake, Della Street, and one of Drake's operatives as they marched across the golf links toward the seventh tee carrying a portable metal detector.

  Mason smiled affably at the group waiting at the tee. "Don't let me disturb your game, gentlemen. We'll wait until you drive."

  "Until we drive?" one of the men asked.

  Mason smiled and nodded toward Drake's operative who was carrying the metal detector.

  "What's that?" the golfer asked.

  "You knew, of course, about the murder that had been committed here," Mason said. "We're looking for evidence."

  "What sort of evidence?"

  "We think perhaps there's- Well, perhaps it isn't wise to disclose my hand in advance. There's perhaps something here that will have a bearing on the case."

  The golfers crowded around, their game forgotten.

  "You're Perry Mason," one of the men said, "the famous attorney."

  Mason bowed and smiled. "Paul Drake, my private detective, one of his operatives, and-mo
st important of all-Miss Street, my confidential secretary."

  Della Street, attired in a form-fitting short skirt which the wind whipped about her knees, gave the men her most engaging smile.

  Other golfers came up.

  "Well," Mason said to the operative, "we may as well go to work."

  The man plugged earphones in his ears, set the electrical dials so they were in proper balance, then started moving slowly along through the taller grass to the sides of the teeing-off place.

  Within a matter of moments, fifty spectators had formed in a ring.

  On the tee someone said, "It's your honors."

  "To hell with the golf," the man said. "This is a lot more exciting. I'll concede every hole from here on in and pay off at that price. Let's see what's happening."

  Word passed like wildfire around the links. Soon the manager of the club came hurrying out to find out what was going on.

  At first he was frowningly uncompromising. Then as he saw the interest of the golfers, he became mollified and, after a few moments, hurried toward the clubhouse.

  Drake said in an undertone to Perry Mason, "He's suddenly become publicity conscious, Perry. He's headed for a telephone to call the press."

  "Well," Mason said in an equally low tone, "I'm certain nothing that we said could have prompted that idea."

  "Moreover," Drake added, "he's about thirty minutes too late."

  Mason gave the detective a searching look. "Your ethics are showing, Paul."

  "It's all right," Drake said. "If my man should find anything, we'd have to tell the police about it, but there's nothing in the code of ethics which says I can't tell the press where I'm searching."

  "As a lawyer," Mason said, "I couldn't use publicity in any way. lt would be unethical."

  Drake grinned. "I knew why you wanted me along on this one-at least, I thought I did."

  The man with the metal detector moved slowly along, weaving the flat pan back and forth just over the surface of the grass back toward the green on the sixth hole, then down along the edge of a sand trap into the rough; back to the sand trap again, then down into the rough.

  Suddenly he said, "Hey, I've got something!"

  "Well, let's see what it is," Mason said.

  The man held the pan of the device directly over the spot.