The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

Chapter 17

Judge Winters tried for three minutes to restore order in the court, and failed. He finally took a tenminute recess and ordered bailiffs to clear the courtroom.

A bailiff appeared at Mason's elbow.

"Judge Winters would like to see you and the district attorney in his chambers," the bailiff said.

Mason nodded, accompanied the bailiff to the Judge's chambers. A moment later, the district attorney entered.

Burger glowered across at Mason and became frigidly dignified. "You wish to see me, Judge?" he asked.

"I want to discuss the very peculiar development of this situation with you gentlemen," he said.

"I have nothing whatever to discuss with Perry Mason," Burger announced. "Whether this woman is or is not Hazel Fenwick has nothing to do with Perry Mason's appearance before the Grand Jury."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," Burger called.

Judge Winters looked up in frowning annoyance. The door pushed open, and Sergeant Holcomb entered the room.

"You'll pardon me for taking liberties, Judge," Burger said, "but, under the circumstances, I have asked Sergeant Holcomb to place Perry Mason in custody."

"Custody for what?" Mason asked.

"Tampering with witnesses," Burger snapped.

"But she wasn't a witness. She didn't know one single thing about the case. She hadn't even followed it in the newspapers. She was a total stranger."

"You sent her to Reno to masquerade as Hazel Fenwick, thereby assisting the real Hazel Fenwick to escape."

"I did nothing of the sort. Hazel Fenwick had already made her escape before I even met Thelma Bevins. In view of the information I gave you in court, it should be very apparent why Hazel Fenwick had concealed herself. Doubtless the police will apprehend her. Now that they know more about her, they will be on the watch for her.

"And, as for advising this young woman to masquerade as Hazel Fenwick, I did nothing of the sort. I sent a man to serve some papers in Reno. I sent this woman to accept service of those papers. At the time the service was made, she told the man specifically and particularly that she was not Hazel Fenwick, that her name was Thelma Bevins, but that she was willing to accept service of the papers.

"For reasons of my own, I desired to have it appear that service of the papers had been made in Reno, Nevada. What those reasons are can have nothing to do with this case."

"But why did you do it?" Judge Winters said sternly. "That's the thing I'm getting at. I don't care to discuss this matter in public until after I've talked it over with you privately. But it seems to me that you have deliberately used the whole process of this Court to make everyone in connection with this case appear ridiculous, doubtless hoping to secure some advantage. If that is true, you have been guilty of a flagrant contempt of court and I intend to fine you and imprison you."

"I have done nothing," Mason said. "I didn't bring this young woman here. In fact, under my instructions, she refused voluntarily to leave Nevada. You will doubtless find that because of connivance between the district attorney and the Nevada authorities, she was virtually forced to leave the state and come here."

"She was a vital witness. I had a court subpoena for her, and the subpoena was served on her," Burger said.

"Exactly," Mason told him. "You are the one that brought her here. You were the one who assumed she was Hazel Fenwick. I didn't bring her here. I didn't make any such assumption. I didn't put her on the stand."

"But what did you hope to gain by doing it?" Judge Winters asked. "Why did you advise her not to answer questions?"

"I'll answer that question," Perry Mason told him, "only upon condition that I may answer it fully and completely and without being interrupted."

"I make no promises," Burger said, "except that you are going before the Grand Jury and that in the meantime you are going to consider yourself in custody."

"I," Judge Winters said, "will be glad to hear your explanation. I feel that it is due me and, perhaps, is due you. You have the reputation for being a very clever and adroit attorney. There is usually some reason back of what you do. I would be glad to know what it was in this case."

"Very well, Judge," Mason said. "Everyone in this room has lost sight of the fact that there is one man who had reason to fear Hazel Fenwick more than any other mortal on earth. That man is the murderer of Hartley Basset.

"He didn't know what Hazel Fenwick looked like. Therefore, if the district attorney should produce some woman who apparently was Hazel Fenwick and put her on the stand, that man would think that the jig was up. He would naturally resort to flight.

"I think you are all overlooking the significance of my comments in court to the effect that Brunold could not have committed this crime because he would not have deliberately placed his own eye in Hartley Basset's hand after the murder had been committed. Nor, on the other hand, could the eye have been snatched from its socket by Hartley Basset, nor even if we are to suppose that it could, would Brunold have deliberately masked the balance of his face, but left visible the empty socket, which would have been one of the most sure means of identification.

"On the other hand, if some other person in that household had an artificial eye and that fact was not suspected by any of the other persons in the house, he would have gone to great lengths to have made it appear that the crime was committed by a person who had only one eye, feeling that by so doing he was directing suspicion to Brunold.

"I tried to get photographs of every one of the persons in that house, facing a strong light. As you are doubtless aware, it is very difficult to detect an artificial eye where the eye is well made, matched and fitted, and where the socket has not in any wise been destroyed. However, a natural eye adjusts itself to light, the pupil dilating or contracting, while an artificial eye obviously cannot make such adjustments. Therefore, a person photographed facing a bright light would show pupils of unequal diameter if he had one glass eye.

"It happened that Colemar refused to pose for a photograph. That made me quite suspicious of Colemar. I am now wondering if Colemar didn't think the young woman who was placed on the stand by the district attorney was the missing witness who could positively identify him and that, as soon as the legal wrangling between counsel was over, she would unhesitatingly do so. I think, therefore, it might be well to check up upon the present whereabouts of Mr. Colemar."

At that moment the telephone rang, and Judge Winters picked up the receiver, placed it to his ear and said, "Just a moment." He nodded to Perry Mason.

"A young lady," he said, "wishes to speak with you."

Mason put the receiver to his ear and heard Della Street 's voice coming over the wire.

"Cheerio, Chief," she said. "Are you still out of jail?"

He grinned into the transmitter and said, "Half and half—half in and half out."

"Well," she said, "I was just a little bit dumb. I didn't realize what you were up to with that Bevins girl until after I heard you advising her not to answer questions. Then I saw a great white light."

"Good girl," he told her.

"So," she said, "I made up my mind that I'd sort of stick around and see if any of the witnesses found occasion to leave the courtroom rather abruptly or surreptitiously."

"Good girl," he repeated. "Did you get any customers?"

"I'll say."

"Who?"

"Colemar."

"Did you tail him?"

"Yes."

"That," he told her, frowning, "was dangerous. You shouldn't have done it."

"You gave me a signal," she said. "I wasn't certain you meant everything was under control or whether you wanted me to take a tumble to your technique and trail along."

"Where is he now, Della?"

"He's at the Union Airport. A plane leaves in twentytwo minutes. He has a ticket for it."

"Be sure," he told her, "that you keep out of sight. The man's desperate."

"How's the case coming?" she asked.

"All finished," he told her. "You beat it up to the office. I'll meet you there."

"I want to see this thing through," she said. "You wait there in the Judge's chambers and let me call you if he takes another runout powder."

"I don't want you hanging around. He may recognize you at any time and…"

She laughed lightly, said, "Cheerio, Chief," and hung up.

Perry Mason consulted his wristwatch and looked at Sergeant Holcomb.

"It may interest you gentlemen to know that Colemar is at the Union Airport and will be there for approximately twentyone minutes. It occurs to me, Sergeant, that if you made certain your gun was loaded you might make a rather spectacular arrest."

Holcomb looked at Burger. Burger frowned thoughtfully, then nodded his head. Sergeant Holcomb gained the door in three swift strides. Perry Mason, lounging on the arm of the chair, grinned across at Burger.

"Mason," the district attorney asked, somewhat sheepishly, "why the devil did you put on all that horse play?"

"It wasn't horse play," Mason insisted. "I ran into a bum break, that's all. The witness who could have cleared my client was wanted by the cops. She had to take a runout powder. Naturally, I got the credit for her disappearance and it left my clients in a spot. I could probably have trapped Colemar on crossexamination, but I wanted as many strings to my bow as I could get. So I tried this stunt. I knew that if I could make him think the Fenwick woman had been returned and was going to be a witness against him he'd either have to kill her or resort to flight. He couldn't very well have killed her while she was in a courtroom surrounded by officers. So I put on an act to make him think the jig was up, but that he was going to have a few hours of grace while a bunch of lawyers were wrangling, back and forth. I figured he thought I really had spirited the girl away and that it would take a Grand Jury hearing to make her talk. That would give him a chance to run away."

"Would you," asked Judge Winters, "mind explaining to me exactly what happened? I find myself very much in the dark."

Mason nodded. "Colemar," he said, "was the partner of Harry McLane in an embezzlement. They embezzled money from Basset. Brunold was the father of Mrs. Basset's child. He'd spent years hunting for her after she had disappeared. When he found her, she was married. He called on her. The chauffeur, who was acting for Basset as spy, almost caught him. Brunold wanted her to leave Basset. She wasn't decided as to what she was going to do, but she did know that if Hartley Basset ever caught Brunold in her room, he would make a terrific scandal which would affect the boy. That was one of the things she didn't want. So she spirited Brunold out of the room. He dropped his glass eye when he was getting out—not the one he was wearing, but an extra one he carried in his pocket.

"Basset got that glass eye. He didn't know the identity of his wife's visitor, but he did know that Colemar had a glass eye. Apparently, he was the only one in the house who knew it. The eyes are pretty much the same color, if you'll notice. Basset got suspicious of Colemar, suspecting him of being intimate with his wife—something of which Colemar was entirely innocent. But, when Basset started checking up on Colemar, he uncovered evidence of Colemar's part in the embezzlement.

"Harry McLane went out to Basset's house, not to see Basset or to pay him off, but to force Colemar to kick through with enough of the embezzled money to keep Basset from prosecuting. About that time, Brunold was out making a final appeal to Mrs. Basset to leave the place, and Dick Basset was sending his young wife down to get acquainted with her fatherinlaw.

"Colemar thought he could intercede for McLane, that a little conversation might save a lot of cash. Basset called him on the glass eye business, sent him, probably, for some books of account, and showed his general suspicion. Colemar didn't bring the books. He picked up a quilt, a blanket and a gun, He also typed out a suicide note. Later on he suddenly realized that he would be the person logically suspected by the police if they weren't fooled by the suicide note—that was after the murder had been committed. So he cleaned the forged notes out of the file, extemporized a mask out of some carbon paper and ran out to show the woman who was waiting in the outer office that the murderer was a oneeyed man. He figured that would tie in nicely with the glass eye which Basset still held in his hand. When the woman surprised him by ripping off the mask, he was in a frenzy of panic. He struck her down and ran out of the place. He jumped in Basset's car, drove it away, then circled back to the garage, put up the car, came back and pretended he'd been to a movie. He found out then that he hadn't killed the Fenwick woman. He wanted to silence her forever. So he entered the room where the Fenwick girl was and kept hanging around. If he'd been left alone with her, he'd have killed her, but Mrs. Basset sent him out. Then he went up to his room and explained to McLane what had happened and that all McLane had to do was to insist he'd paid off the notes and no one could prove differently. That would have made it appear Basset had a lot of cash on him at the time of the murder and make the motive look like robbery."

Burger, staring at Perry Mason, said, "How do you know all this?"

"Simply by deductive reasoning," Mason said. "My God, Burger, it stuck out so plainly that it's a wonder it needed anyone to point it out to you. The murder must have been committed by a professional typist. The fake suicide note was written by a professional typist, someone who used the touch system. The murderer must also have been someone who was able to walk into Basset's study carrying something on his arm without attracting undue attention, because Basset didn't put up any fight, apparently hadn't sensed any danger. The murderer must have been someone with an artificial eye who wanted the authorities to know that he had an artificial eye. The only possible reason that a person would want to advertise his artificial eye was that he felt suspicion could thereby be directed on someone else.

"Moreover, Mrs. Basset wanted the Fenwick girl to have an uninterrupted interview with Hartley Basset. Therefore, she watched the front door until the last client had left before taking the Fenwick woman down to Hartley Basset's outer office. Yet, when this woman knocked at the door of Basset's inner office, some man was in there talking with Basset. That man must have been Colemar, unless it was someone who had entered through the back door, which wasn't very likely.

"Moreover, if a oneeyed man had been making a mask very hurriedly only for the purpose of concealing his features, he would only have torn out one eye hole. The fact that he tore out two eye holes shows that he was trying to direct attention to the empty eye socket. Now, if that had been Brunold, he'd never have advertised the fact of that empty eye socket."

"Then." Burger said, "young McLane must have been killed because he was going to talk."

"Probably," Mason said.

"But why the devil did the person who killed young McLane put a glass eye in his palm? That must have been done by Colemar. Why did he do it?"

Perry Mason, looking very innocent, said, "After all. Burger, there's only so much one can accomplish by using deductive reasoning. I'm free to confess that I'm at the end of my rope. I can't give you an answer to that."

Burger stared at him steadily. Mason, his face perfectly composed, puffed placidly at his cigarette.

Judge Winters slowly nodded his head. "Obvious," he said, "from the beginning, if a person hadn't allowed his mind to be blinded by a lot of extraneous details and had concentrated upon the obvious."

Perry Mason stretched and yawned, looked at his wristwatch and said, "I'd certainly like to hear from Sergeant Holcomb. I hope he gets Colemar without a shooting."

Burger said slowly, "Mason, you should have been a detective instead of a lawyer."

"Thank you," Mason told him. "I'm doing very well as it is."

"How did you know I was going to fall for the Bevins woman and bring her into court?" Burger asked.

"Because," Mason told him, "I'm too old a campaigner to underestimate an adversary. I knew that you'd get her here some way. I timed the whole play so that you would just about have time to bring her in as a surprise witness and confound me with her. I figured you'd do that."

"But you didn't tell her anything of your plans?"

"No, I figured the less she knew, the less she'd have to tell. I knew that if she told you folks the truth, you'd think she was lying."

"How did you know we'd be able to get her here?"

"That is where I didn't underestimate your ability, Burger." Burger sighed, got to his feet and started pacing the floor.

"It's plain enough, now that it's pointed out," he said, "but, by God, I'd have sworn Brunold committed that murder with the connivance and assistance of Mrs. Basset, and I'd have prosecuted them and demanded the death penalty, at least for Brunold."

He dropped into a chair and fell silent.

"After all," Judge Winters said in an aggrieved voice, "you should have taken me in on the play, Counselor, so that I wouldn't have appeared so ridiculous there in the courtroom."

Mason smiled, and said, "You'll pardon me, your Honor, and understand that the remark contains nothing of disrespect, but if you hadn't appeared so ridiculous, as you term it, you wouldn't have appeared convincing."

For a moment Judge Winters' forehead came together in a frown, then the corners of his lips tilted.

"Oh, well," he said, "have it your own way."

Perry Mason pinched out his cigarette end, looked at his wristwatch, and lit another cigarette. Burger turned to Mason and said, "How the devil am I going to square myself with the newspapers?"

Mason waved his hand in a generous gesture.

"Take it all," he said.

"All of what?"

"All of the credit. Figure that it was an act you put on with me for the purpose of trapping the real murderer."

A gleam of quick interest showed in Burger's eyes.

Abruptly the door burst open. Three newspaper men came storming into the room. They descended upon Burger with a barrage of questions.

"Wait a minute," Burger said. "What's happened?"

"Out at the airport—a shooting. Sergeant Holcomb's wounded, and Colemar killed. How did Colemar get out there? What was he doing? Why did Sergeant Holcomb go after him?"

One of the news men detached himself from the others, grabbed Mason's arm.

"What about it, Mason?" he shouted. "Give us the lowdown. It's the biggest thing you've ever pulled.

Perry Mason sighed.

"Mr. Burger," he said, "will make the statement to the press in our joint behalf. In the meantime, gentlemen, if you'll pardon me, I've got to go to my office."