Mason, his eyes narrowed, asked, “Has he given a statement?”
“He made a statement, yes.”
“Did he sign it?”
“No, I don’t think so. It was taken down in shorthand. Now then, before he’s subpoenaed, can’t he leave town, go to some foreign country?”
Mason said, “It’s going to look like hell, so far as public sentiment is concerned. The district attorney’s office will play it up big in the newspapers. They’ll intimate he’s been spirited away to avoid testifying. Where is he now?”
“In his car, waiting down at the parking station across from your office. He has his bag packed and his reservation made on a plane for Mexico City. Then he’ll go from there to…”
There was a commotion at the outer door, a woman’s voice half screaming, “You’ll have to be announced,” then a man’s voice exclaiming irritably, “Beat it.”
The door burst open. Jerry Harris, his face grim, strode unceremoniously into the office, holding an oblong paper in his hand.
“By God,” he said, “they got me—caught me like a damned fool, sitting right in my own car in the parking station in front of your office!”
“Caught you with what?” Mason asked.
“Caught me with a subpoena to appear and testify before the Grand Jury tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”
Mason spread out his hands and said, “Well, the district attorney stole a march on us. Hamilton Burger’s nobody’s fool.”
“But,” Edna asked, “can’t he still leave? The plane leaves tonight and…”
“And they’re undoubtedly keeping him under surveillance,” Mason said. “They saw him come up to this office after the subpoena had been served. If he leaves the country now, they’ll have me on the carpet before the grievance committee of the Bar Association. It was a poor idea in the first place. No, we’ve got to take this thing right on the chin. Sit down, Harris, and tell me about it.”
“I’m frightfully sorry,” Harris said lamely. “Thinking it over, I’m wondering if there’s any chance I could claim I was mistaken. Of course, at first it didn’t seem important and I was positive in my statement to the deputy district attorney and…”
“You don’t stand one chance in ten million,” Mason retorted. “They could almost establish the point without your testimony because Edna locked the drawer and kept the key. It’s a cinch the carving knife couldn’t have been in there.”
“But they don’t know I locked the drawer,” Edna said. “I’ll swear I didn’t. I’ll…”
“You’ll tell the truth,” Mason said. “Any time I have to depend on perjured evidence to acquit a client, I’ll quit trying cases. If he’s innocent, we’ll get him off.”
The telephone rang. Della Street picked up the receiver, then handed it to Mason. “Paul Drake calling and says it’s ‘important as hell.’“
Mason placed the receiver to his ear. Drake’s voice, for once showing enough excitement to overcome his habitual drawl, said, “You wanted to know where Doris Sully Kent went while she was in Los Angeles. My men have been telephoning in reports. Right at present I’m advised that her green Packard roadster is in a parking space across the street and that she’s headed across for your office. I thought you might want a minute or two to put your house in order.”
Mason cut off Drake’s chuckle by slamming the receiver back into place. “Listen, you two,” he said, “Doris Kent is on her way up. She’s probably going to make me a proposition. If she meets you here or in the corridor, it might cramp her style. Miss Street will take you into another room. When the coast is clear, you can slip down the corridor. Edna, they’ll probably be waiting for you at the street entrance with a subpoena. Don’t try to dodge service. Be a little lady, smile, and keep your mouth shut. Okay, Della, take them into the law library.”
Della Street was just returning from the law library when Mason’s telephone rang and one of the girls in the outer office said, “Mrs. Doris Sully Kent insists that you should see her upon a matter of great importance.”
Mason said, “Show the lady in,” dropped the receiver back on the hook and said to Della Street, “Beat it into your office, Della, take notes on this conversation.” He clicked a switch which connected a loud speaker interoffice telephone with his secretary’s private office, then raised expectant eyes to the door from the outer office.
Della Street was just closing the door of her office when the switchboard operator opened the other door to usher in an attractive woman in her early thirties, who smiled at Mason with wide blue eyes. Mason surveyed her critically, took in neatly turned ankles displayed just far enough to arouse interest without satisfying curiosity, full red lips, accentuated by lipstick, finespun blonde hair. She met his detailed scrutiny with a tolerant smile. Without the faintest hint of selfconsciousness, she walked across to Mason’s desk, extended him her hand and said, “It was nice of you to see me.” Mason indicated a chair. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, hitching the chair around so that she not only faced him, but he could see her crossed knees to advantage. “They tell me you’re a very clever lawyer.”
“My reputation,” Mason said, “probably varies greatly, depending upon whether one talks with the plaintiff or defendant.”
Her laugh was tinkling. “Don’t be like that,” she said. “You know you’re good. Why not admit it? That’s my trouble with lawyers—they’re afraid to admit anything—always afraid someone’s laying a trap for them.”
Mason did not smile. “All right, then,” he said, “I’m good. So what?”
There was a swift trace of uneasiness in her eyes as she sized him up, but the smile remained, a friendly parting of the full red lips, disclosing even rows of white teeth. “So you’re defending dear old Pete,” she said. Mason said nothing. “Can you get him off?” Mason nodded.
She opened her purse, took out a cigarette case, opened it and extended it to Mason. “No, thanks,” he said; “I have my own.” He selected one from his own cigarette case. She held her head slightly tilted to one side, her eyes expectant. Mason crossed to her and held a match to her cigarette. Her laughing eyes looked up into his.
She inhaled a great drag of smoke, expelled it in twin streams from appreciative nostrils and said, “I came to see what I could do to help.” He raised his eyebrows. “Helping to clear poor Pete,” she amplified.
“Just what did you have in mind?”
“I could testify that I had known for some time he was suffering from a progressive mental malady which made him irrational at times, particularly at night. On many occasions he has awakened and shown evidences of suffering delusions. I thought at first that he was trying to kill me, but, thinking back over it and calling to my mind certain matters which seemed trivial then, I can appreciate now that poor Pete was mentally a very sick man. He had a nervous breakdown in Chicago and never recovered from it.”
“Anything else?”
She glanced at him with a slight frown. The smile was no longer in evidence. “What more do you want?” she asked.
“Anything you care to tell me.”
“I don’t think I’d care to tell you any more until I knew just where I stood.”
“In what way?”
“Whether you were going to cooperate with me.”
Mason said slowly, “I can’t see where there’s any question of cooperation, Mrs. Kent. If you have any testimony you want to give, I’ll be glad to hear it.”
“I can testify about a lot of things. Perhaps, if you’d tell me just what you needed in order to make your defense stand up, I could think of things which would be pertinent. You see, in the everyday contacts of married life there are many incidents which aren’t entirely forgotten, yet which can’t be recalled offhand, unless something refreshes the recollection. Therefore, if you’d tell me just what you want, I might be able to help you. You wouldn’t need to worry about me on crossexamination. I can take care of myself.”
“Meaning you can sway a jury?”
Mason asked.
“If you want to put it that way, yes.”
“Very well,” Mason told her, “leave your address and I’ll get in touch with you, if I can think of anything.”
“Can’t you think of it now?”
“No.”
“I’d like to know whether you were… well, shall I say receptive?”
“I thank you very much for coming; but don’t you think it would be better for you to have your attorney with you, if you intended to discuss matters of this nature?”
She leaned toward him and said, “I’m going to be frank with you, Mr. Mason. I’m glad you brought that up.
“Why?”
“Because,” she said, “I haven’t as yet signed any agreement with my attorney. I’ve been stalling him off.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He wants a contract for onehalf of anything I get, if my action’s successful. I don’t want to pay him unless I have to, and I don’t have to. Can’t you see? My husband isn’t in a position to fight me any more.”
“Why not?”
“Because he needs my testimony. If I can get him out of this murder charge on the ground he’s mentally deranged, then I can set aside the divorce case. Then I’d be custodian of his property because I’d be his wife.”
“I see all of that,” Mason said, “but I don’t care to discuss it with you unless your attorney is present.”
“Why?”
“Professional ethics.”
“I don’t see why you can’t discuss my testimony.”
“I can discuss your testimony but I can’t discuss this divorce case.
“It seems to me, Mr. Mason, that you’re very, very cautious… very ethical.”
“I am.”
There was no sign of petulance on her face, but she crushed the cigarette into an all but shapeless mass as she viciously ground it into the ashtray. “Too damned ethical, and it isn’t like you,” she said, and, getting to her feet, went at once to the corridor door without giving Mason so much as a backward glance.
Chapter 14
It was late afternoon. The big office building echoed with the sounds of hectic activity incident to the closing of business offices. Stenographers, anxious to get home after a grinding day in the office, clickclacked down the flagged corridor, their highheeled shoes beating a nervous tattoo of rapid steps. There was a certain monotony about the whole hectic routine. Steps sounded in the distance, grew into added volume as they passed Mason’s door, then paused before the glass mail chute as letters shot downward. Elevator doors clanged, the corridor was cleared of its human cargo, only presently to echo under a fresh barrage of pattering feet. As the clock chimed five, the sounds grew in volume. By fivethirty the building was almost silent, the center of noise having shifted to the street, from which blaring horns and shrill traffic whistles beat insistently upon the lawyer’s ears. Perry Mason paced the floor, thumbs thrust in the armholes of his vest, head bent forward in thought. Apparently he was oblivious of all of the distracting noises. The door of his private office noiselessly opened. Della Street tiptoed to her secretarial desk and seated herself, waiting.
Mason hardly glanced up. “Go home, Della,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
She shook her head. “I’ll stick around. Something may turn up.”
Knuckles tapped on the corridor door. She glanced inquiringly at Mason, who nodded to her. At his nod, she moved quickly across the room to open the door. Paul Drake said, “Thanks, Della,” and gave Mason a quick glance. “Walking another marathon, Perry?”
“I’m trying to walk a solution out of this damned case.”
“Well,” Drake said, “perhaps I can simplify things a little. I’ve traced that call to Mrs. Doris Kent. It was sent in from a pay station in the Pacific Greyhound Stage Depot at 1629 North Cahuenga Boulevard. The connection was made at one minute past three o’clock in the morning, and the conversation terminated three and a half minutes later. Maddox put in the call, using his own name. It was a persontoperson call.”
“Get photostatic copies of those records,” Mason ordered. “You’re keeping Mrs. Kent shadowed?”
“I’ll say we are. What did she want here?”
“Wanted to have us give her the earth with a fence around it.”
“Meaning?” Drake asked in his slow drawl.
“Meaning she wanted me to agree not to contest her action, but let her have the divorce set aside and assume control of the property as Kent’s wife. She’d swear to anything necessary to have him declared incompetent. That, of course, would simplify our defense to the murder case.”
Drake drawled, “Nice of her, wasn’t it?”
“Very.”
“Isn’t the case against Kent pretty much one of circumstantial evidence?” Della Street asked.
Drake pulled a notebook from his pocket. “ Duncan,” he said, “has given out an interview to the newspapers. He swears absolutely that it was three o’clock when he saw the sleepwalker in the patio. He says the person he saw was Kent; that Kent had something in his hand which glittered. It might have been a knife, he can’t be positive.”
Della Street interrupted to exclaim indignantly, “How’s he going to get away with changing his story like that?”
“Cinch,” Mason said. “He’ll claim that when he first told his story to the officers he was a little rattled; that he said the time was either quarter past twelve or three o’clock; that I didn’t understand him correctly; that he didn’t positively identify the sleepwalker as Kent because he was afraid his motives might be misconstrued; that the more he thinks of it, the more positive he’s become that it was Kent, and that it makes no difference what we may think of his motives, it’s his duty to tell the truth. Then he’ll make a lot of wisecracks on crossexamination.”
“You mean he’s going to commit deliberate perjury?”
“No, the old fossil will think he’s telling the truth. That’s the hell of it. But this telephone call gives me an opportunity to take him to pieces. He wasn’t asleep at three o’clock in the morning.”
“Isn’t there a chance Maddox might have put in the call without Duncan knowing anything about it?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s one chance in a hundred. The fact that they were all in conference this morning proves that Maddox wasn’t trying to slip anything over on Duncan. I thought at first Maddox might have figured he could cut Duncan out on the deal, but that doesn’t check with the other facts.”
Drake consulted his notebook again. “Here’s something else,” he said. “Do you know what time Harris claims he noticed the knife wasn’t in the sideboard drawer?”
“It was some time during the evening,” Mason remarked, “I don’t know just when. Why?”
“Because,” Drake said, “I think we can show the knife was in the drawer when it was locked.”
“How?”
“By the butler. One of my men posed as a newspaper reporter and talked with him. He was all swelled up with importance and only too willing to spill everything he knew. He says that before he went to his room he went to the sideboard to look for something, and distinctly remembers that the knife was in the drawer at the time.”
“What time?” Mason asked.
“He can’t tell exactly. It was some time after the dishes were all done and put away, but, and here’s the significant part of it, he thinks it was after Harris left for Santa Barbara. Now if that’s true, the knife might have been missing from the sideboard, but it was returned before Kent’s niece locked the sideboard drawer.”
Mason frowned. “Why would anyone want to take it out and then put it back?” Drake shrugged his shoulders. Mason said, “That testimony doesn’t make sense, Paul. I wouldn’t trust the butler too much, myself. Harris has to be telling the truth. If the knife was in the drawer when the drawer was locked, Kent couldn’t have taken it out. There was only one key.”
“Of course,” Drake drawled, “people
have been known to pick locks.”
Mason said irritably, “I don’t dare to advance that theory, Paul.”
“Why not?”
“A sleepwalker wouldn’t pick a lock. If he had a key or knew where the key was, he might unlock the drawer, but I don’t think he’d pick a lock. There’s something about that which doesn’t fit in with a sleepwalking theory… Where did Doris Kent go after she left here, Paul?”
“Straight to her lawyer’s office.”
“Then where?”
“Then she started back for Santa Barbara.”
“You have men shadowing her?”
“Two of them.”
“You said there weren’t any fingerprints on that knife handle?” Mason asked abruptly.
“None they can pin on Kent. There were prints, but they were badly smeared. The officers figure that either they were smeared by rubbing against the sheet and pillowcase, or else that you and Edna Hammer managed to ‘accidentally’ obliterate them. But there are no prints they can positively identify as Kent’s. A newspaper man got the information directly from the fingerprint expert and passed it on to me.”
“But if Kent’s fingerprints weren’t on it,” Della Street said, “how are they going to hold him? Just because the knife was found under his pillow doesn’t prove he’s guilty of murder.”
“The whole thing,” Mason said, “gets back to Duncan. If I can break down Duncan’s identification I can win the case in a walk. If I can’t break Duncan’s testimony, I’ve got to rely on sleepwalking. If I rely on sleepwalking I must prove how Kent got possession of that knife. If he took it from the drawer in the sideboard before he went to sleep it shows premeditation and indicates that the sleepwalking defense was a fake. If he didn’t take it from the sideboard before he went to sleep then he couldn’t have got it afterwards, because the sideboard drawer was locked and Edna Hammer had the only key in her exclusive possession all night.”
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