The Case of the Daring Decoy

Chapter Fourteen

Judge DeWitt said, “The jurors are all present. The defendant is in court. At the conclusion of yesterday’s testimony Dr. Reeves Garfield was on the stand. Will you please resume your place on the stand, Dr. Garfield?”

Dr. Garfield took his place in the witness chair.

“Directing your attention to this discoloration which you noticed on the left side of the body,” Mason asked, “can you tell us more about the nature of that discoloration?”

“It was barely noticeable; only in certain lights could you see it. It was simply a very, very faint change in the complexion of the skin.”

“Would you say that it had no medical significance, Doctor?”

“I would never state that any phenomenon one may find in a cadaver in a murder case had no medical significance.”

“Was there a dispute as to whether this color had any real significance or not?”

Hamilton Burger was on his feet. “Your Honor, we object to that as being improper cross-examination. It calls for something which is incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial. It makes no difference whether there was a dispute or not. This Court is trying this defendant not for the purpose of determining what argument someone may have had, but for the purpose of getting the ultimate facts.”

“I will sustain the objection,” Judge DeWitt said.

“Was there a dispute between you and Dr. Malone as to the significance of this slight discoloration?”

“Same objection,” Hamilton Burger said.

Judge DeWitt hesitated for a long, thoughtful moment, then said, “The same ruling. I will sustain the objection.”

“Isn’t it a fact,” Mason said, “that this slight discoloration may have been due to the fact that the body lay for some appreciable interval after death on its left side, and that the I slight discoloration marked the beginnings of a post-mortem lividity, which remained after the body had again been moved?”

“That is, of course, a possibility.”

“A distinct possibility?”

“Well, it is a possibility. I will concede that.”

“Now, did you ever know of a case where there had been a pronounced development of rigor mortis in the right arm and shoulder with no rigor mortis in the left shoulder, unless someone had broken the rigor?”

“I know of no such case.”

“Is it your opinion that the rigor in the left shoulder had been broken?”

The witness shifted his position on the witness stand, looked somewhat hopelessly at Hamilton Burger.

“That’s objected to,” Hamilton Burger said, “on the ground that the question is argumentative, that it calls for a conclusion of the witness.”

“The objection is overruled,” Judge DeWitt said. “The witness is an expert, and is testifying as to his opinion. Answer the question.”

Dr. Garfield said slowly, “It is my opinion that the rigor had been broken.”

“And it is your opinion that the position of the body had been changed after death, and prior to the time you saw it there in Room 729 at the Redfern Hotel?”

There was a long period of hesitation, then Dr. Garfield said reluctantly, “That is my opinion.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “That is all.”

“No further questions,” Elliott announced.

Hamilton Burger seemed preoccupied and worried. He bent over and whispered something to his trial deputy, and then ponderously tiptoed from the courtroom.

Elliott said, “My next witness will be Lt. Tragg.”

Tragg came forward and was sworn. He testified in a leisurely manner that was hardly in keeping with Tragg’s usually crisp, incisive manner on the stand.

He had, he said, attended a conference of officers on October seventeenth. The defendant had appeared. With him had appeared his attorney, Perry Mason.

“Did the defendant make a statement?”

“Yes.”

“Was the statement free arid voluntary?”

“It was.”

Elliott asked him to describe what was said.

Slowly, almost tediously, Tragg repeated the conversation in detail, with Elliott glancing at his watch from time to time.

The morning recess was taken and Court reconvened. Tragg’s testimony was still dragging on until at eleven-thirty he was finished.

“You may cross-examine,” Elliott said.

“No questions,” Mason said.

Elliott bit his lip.

His next witness was the uniformed officer who had sat in on the conference in the district attorney’s office. The uniformed officer was still giving his testimony about what had happened when Court took its noon adjournment.

“What’s happening?” Conway whispered. “They seem to be bogging down.”

“They’re worried,” Mason whispered back. “Just keep a stiff upper lip.”

The jurors filed out of the courtroom. Mason walked over to where Paul Drake, Della Street, and Myrtle Lamar, the elevator operator, were standing talking.

Myrtle Lamar shifted her wad of gum, grinned at Mason.

“Hello, big boy,” she said.

“How’s everything?” Mason asked.

“Sort of tedious this morning,” she said. “Why the subpoena? I’m supposed to be on duty tonight and I should be getting my beauty sleep.”

“You don’t need it,” Mason told her.

“I will before I get done.”

Drake put his hand on her arm. “We’ll take care of you all right. Don’t worry!”

“You don’t know the manager up there at the Redfern Hotel. Women must have made a habit of turning him down. He loves to kick them around. He’d throw me out on my ear as easy as he’d snap a bread crumb off the table.”

“You don’t snap bread crumbs. You remove them with a little silver scoop,” Drake said.

“You and your damned culture,” she said.

“Come on,” Mason told her. “We’re going out.”

“Where?”

“We’re going visiting.”

“My face,” she said, “has bad habits. It needs to be fed.”

“We’ll get it fed,” Mason said.

“Okay, that’s a promise!”

Mason shepherded them down in the elevator into his car, drove carefully but skillfully.

“Where?” Drake asked.

Mason looked at his watch. “Not far.”

Mason stopped the car in front of an apartment house, went to the room telephones, called Evangeline Farrell.

When her voice came on the line, the lawyer said, “Mrs. Farrell, I want to see you at once on a matter of considerable importance.”

“I’m not dressed for company,” she said.

“Put on something,” Mason told her. “I have to be back in court and I’m coming up.”

“Is it important?”

“Very!”

“It concerns the case?”

“Yes.”

“Come on up,” she told him.

Mason nodded to the others. They took the elevator.

Mrs. Farrell opened the apartment door, then fell back in surprise, clutching at the sheer negligee.

“You didn’t tell me anyone was with you,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Mason told her. “I overlooked it, perhaps. I’m in a terrible hurry. I have to be back in court at two o’clock.”

“But what in the world—?”

Mason said, “You could buy us a drink. This is important.”

She hesitated for a long moment, then said, “Very well.”

“May I help you?” Della Street asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mason said. “I haven’t introduced these people to you.”

Mason performed introductions, mentioning only names except for Della Street. “My confidential secretary,” he explained.

“Come on,” Della Street said, “I’ll help you.”

Somewhat hesitantly Mrs. Farrell moved toward the kitchenette. When she had gone, Mason said to the elevator operator, “Have you ever seen her before?”

“I think I have. If I could get a better look at her feet, I’d be sure. I’d like to see her shoes.”

“Let’s look,” Mason said. He walked boldly to the bedroom door, opened it, beckoned to Paul Drake who took Myrtle’s arm, led her along into the bedroom.

The elevator operator tried to hang back, but Drake shifted his arm around her waist.

“Know what you’re, doing, Perry?” Drake asked, as Mason crossed the bedroom.

“No,” Mason said, “but I have a hunch.” He opened a closet door.

“Take a look at the shoes, Myrtle,” Mason said. “Do they mean anything to you? Wait a moment! I guess we don’t need those. Take a look at this.” The lawyer reached back into the closet, pulled out a Suitcase. It had the initials “R. C.”

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” an angry, icy voice demanded.

Mason turned, said, “Right at the moment, I’m checking the baggage that you removed from the Redfern Hotel, Mrs. Farrell, and this young woman who is the elevator operator who was on duty the day of the murder is looking at your shoes to see if she recognizes the pair you wore. She has the peculiar habit of noticing people’s feet.”

Mrs. Farrell started indignantly toward them, then suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Mason said, “Let’s take a look inside that suitcase, Paul.”

“You can’t do that,” she said. “You have no right.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “if you want it the hard way, we’ll do it the hard way. Go to the phone, Paul. Call Homicide and ask them to send up some officers with a warrant. We’ll stay here until they arrive.”

Evangeline Farrell stood looking at them with eyes that held an expression of sickened dismay.

“Or perhaps,” Mason said, “you’d like to tell us about it. We haven’t very much time, Mrs. Farrell.”

“Tell you about what?” she asked, trying to get hold of herself.

“About renting Room 729 and saying you were the secretary of Gerald Boswell, and that he was to occupy the room for the night.

“Tell us about shooting Rose Calvert, who was in 728; about sitting there waiting, trying to figure out what you’d do, then taking the body across the hall... Did you manage that alone? Or did someone help you?”

She said, “You can’t do that to me. You — I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mason walked over to the telephone, picked up the receiver, said to the operator, “I want Lt. Tragg at—”

“Wait!” Mrs. Farrell screamed at him. “Wait! You’ve got to help me.”

Mason said into the mouthpiece of the telephone, “Never mind.” He dropped the phone into its cradle.

“All right,” she said. “All right! I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you the whole story. I’ve been frightened stiff ever since it happened. But I didn’t kill her. I didn’t! Please, please believe that I didn’t kill her.”

“Who did?” Mason asked.

“Gifford,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“He must have. He’s the only one. He thought she was selling out. I guess he must have followed me to the hotel. He knew I was there.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “You only have a minute or two. Get it off your chest. What happened?”

She said, “I wanted to give Mr. Conway the lists of stockholders who had sent in proxies. I wanted to do it under such circumstances that Gifford would think his little mistress had sold him out. She was at the Redfern Hotel. She had this room in 728. She was typing. You could hear her through the transom banging away on a portable typewriter like mad. I told you the truth about getting the used carbon paper.”

“Why did you do all this?” Mason asked. “Why did you rent that suite?”

“I didn’t want Jerry Conway to lose control of Texas Global.”

“Why?” Mason asked. “I would think your interests would have been elsewhere. I would think that your only hope of getting money out of your husband depended upon letting him get in the saddle by—”

“I had to look at it two ways,” she interrupted. “I’ve already told you. I felt that under Conway’s management my Texas Global stock would be valuable. I wasn’t so sure about Gifford’s management. I figured that by the time this tramp he was running around with got hers, and when the next tramp he would be running around with got hers, my stock would be worthless.”

“All right,” Mason said, “what did you do?”

She said, “I knew that my husband was playing around with Rose Calvert. I followed her to the hotel. She registered as Ruth Culver.”

Mason’s voice showed excitement. “Had she registered that way before?”

“Yes. In two hotels.”

“I want the names of those hotels,” Mason said.

“I can give you the names, the dates and the room numbers.

“While she was at those other hotels, my husband was bringing her data, and she was typing out lists of proxy holders on her portable typewriter. Then one day she left a copy of the list in her car. The car was parked, and the doors weren’t even locked. I realize now it was a trap. I didn’t know it at the time. I reached in and got this list. That, of course, was a completely phony list that they were hoping would lull Conway into a sense of security. I walked right into that trap.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“I wanted Conway to have that list, but I didn’t want him to know where it came from. So I telephoned him, and disguised my voice. I told him to remember me by the name of Rosalind.”

“You told him a lot of things about being followed by detectives and goon squads?” Mason asked. “Why was that?”

“That was just to protect my identity and make him cautious.”

“Actually you didn’t know he was followed?”

“I didn’t think he was. This Gashouse Baker was entirely a figment of my imagination.”

“All right. Go ahead. What happened?”

“Well, I decided I’d do a little amateur detective work. I thought I’d get down to where I could follow Rose Calvert from her apartment. I wanted to know exactly what she was doing and where she was going.

“On the morning of the sixteenth, she went to the Red- fern Hotel and registered as Ruth Culver. She was given Room 728.

“Once or twice during the morning, I went up in the elevator and walked down the corridor. I could hear her pounding away like mad on her typewriter. She stopped once around twelve-thirty when Room Service brought her lunch.

“You see, I had all the advantage because I knew what she looked like, but she didn’t know me when she saw me. I was just a complete stranger as far as she was concerned. I had pictures of her in a Bikini bathing suit. I had pictures of her in the nude. I had followed my husband to her apartment. I knew all about her, and she knew nothing about me.

“What happened at the hotel?” Mason asked, looking at his watch impatiently.

“Well, about ten minutes to two, I guess it was, Rose came downstairs and went out. She tossed her key on the counter for the clerk to put away. The clerk was busy, and when he had his back turned, I just walked up and took the key to room 728. And then just after I’d picked it up and before I could turn away from the counter, the clerk turned around and came toward the counter and asked me if there was something I wanted. Then was when I had a brilliant inspiration. I told him that I was a secretary for Gerald Boswell, that Gerald Boswell had some work he wanted done, and had asked me to get a suite in his name. I told him that, since I didn’t have any baggage, I would pay the price of the suite and Mr. Boswell would move in sometime that evening. I asked him if he would give me two keys to the suite, so that I could get in and so I could give one to Mr. Boswell.

“The clerk didn’t think anything of it. I suppose he may have thought it was a date with a married woman sneaking away to meet her lover, but things like that don’t even cause a lifted eyebrow in that hotel — not from what I hear.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “Never mind the hotel. We want to know what you did.”

“Well, I told the clerk I wanted something not too low down and not too high up, something around the seventh floor. He said he had 729 vacant and I took that. I didn’t have any baggage so there was nothing to take up to the room. I took the key, and after a while I walked up and settled down to listen. My room was right across the corridor from 728.I left the door slightly open and sat there watching.

“About two-thirty Rose Calvert came back.”

“But you had her key?”

“Yes, but you know how those things are. Keys are always getting lost around a hotel. They have several keys for each room, and sometimes the clerk will put one in the wrong box, or a tenant will walk away with it, so they always have duplicates. I don’t suppose Rose had any trouble whatever getting a key to the room. She simply said she’d left hers at the desk, and the clerk dug one out for her.”

“Then what happened?’“

“Well, then she didn’t do any more typing, and I began to realize that probably the list I had was either obsolete or else a completely phony list they wanted to use as a red herring.”

“So what did you do?”

“So, I went down and telephoned Mr. Conway. I took the name of Rosalind, and gave him the old rigmarole.”

“You didn’t call from the room?”

“No, I didn’t even call from the hotel. I walked a couple of blocks to a phone booth and phoned from there.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“Well, I went down and put in this telephone call, then I went shopping for a few things. Then I phoned again and went back to the room.”

“Then what?”

“Well, I started watching again.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said. “Let’s fix this time schedule. You were in your room at two-thirty?”

“That’s right.”

“Rose Calvert was back in her room by that time?”

“Yes. That’s when she came in.”

“Then you went out to telephone Conway?”

“Yes, twice. In between I walked around a little while getting some fresh air and doing some shopping.”

“What time did you get back?”

“I didn’t look at my watch.”

“All right, go on. What happened?”

“Well, I sat by the door listening for a while, but couldn’t hear anything. Then along about three-thirty I was in the bathroom. That was when I heard a peculiar sound which I thought was made by someone banging on my bedroom door.

“I was completely paralyzed with fright. It was as though someone had given my door a good, hard kick. I felt certain someone had discovered that I was spying on Rose Calvert across the hall, and I didn’t know what to do for a moment.

“So I went to the door of the suite, put on my most innocent expression and opened it. No one was there. I looked up and down the corridor. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I felt. Then just as I was closing the door, having it opened just a crack, I saw the door across the corridor start to open. So I glued my eye to the door and... and—”

“Go on,” Mason said, his voice showing his excitement. “What happened?”

“Gifford walked out.”

“Gifford Farrell, your husband?”

She nodded.

“Go on,” Mason said. “Then what?”

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time, because he’d been calling on her when she had rooms in the other hotels. I don’t think there was anything romantic about those calls. She had her portable typewriter with her, and I guess she was doing typing work, and they took all those precautions to keep anyone from knowing what was going on.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “What happened?”

“Well, I closed my door tight and waited awhile, then I opened it awhile and listened, but there were no more sounds coming from the room across the hall.

“And then suddenly I began to wonder if Rose might not have gone out while I was out. I went downstairs and out to the phone booth, called the Redfern Hotel and asked to be connected with Room 728.”

“What happened?”

“I could hear the noise the line makes when there’s a phone ringing and there is no answer. The operator told me my party was out and asked if I wanted her paged.”

“I said no, that I’d call later.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Then, I went back in a hurry, took the elevator up to the seventh floor, and tapped gently on 728. When there was no answer, I used my key and opened the door.”

“What did you find?”

“Rose Calvert was lying there dead on the bed. And then suddenly I realized what that noise had been. My husband had shot her and he’d shot her with my gun.”

“What do you mean, your gun?”

“My gun. It was lying there on the floor by the bed.”

“Your gun?”

“Mine,” she said. “I recognized it. It was one that the Texas Global had bought for the cashier to carry because the cashier lived out in the country. He was afraid to drive alone at night for fear someone would try to hold him up and get the combination of the safe. I guess he was getting a little nervous and neurotic. He died a few months afterward.

“Anyway, the company bought him the gun, and after he died, Gifford took the gun and gave it to me.”

“You recognized the gun?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I used to sleep with it under my pillow. I dropped it once, and there was a little nick out of the hard, rubber handle. Then once I’d got some fingernail enamel on it and there was just that little spot of red.

“Of course, I’d never have noticed it if I hadn’t seen Gifford leave the room. Knowing he’d shot her, I suddenly wondered about the weapon. And then I knew it was my weapon.”

“How long had he had it?”

“I moved out on him, and like a fool I didn’t take the gun with me. So it was there in the apartment...”

“I see,” Mason said. “What did you do?”

“Well, I decided to leave things just the way they were and quietly check out of the hotel, so I opened the door and started out into the corridor, and that was when I got trapped.”

“What do you mean?”

“The chambermaid was walking by just as I opened the door, and she looked at me, then suddenly did a double take and said, ‘Is that your room?’“

“What did you do?”

“I had to brazen it through. She evidently had been talking with Rose, and knew that that wasn’t my room.”

“Well,” Mason said, “what did you do?”

“I thought fast. I told her no, that it wasn’t my room, that it was my friend’s room, and that she’d given me her key and asked me to go and wait for her, but that I couldn’t wait any longer. I was going downstairs and leave a note for her.”

“Did you convince the chambermaid?”

“That’s the trouble. I didn’t. The chambermaid kept staring at me, and I know she thought I was a hotel thief. But she didn’t say anything. Probably she was afraid of getting into trouble. That trapped me. I knew that the minute the body of Rose Calvert was found in that room, I’d be connected with the crime. I was in a panic. I walked down the corridor to the elevator, waited until the chambermaid had gone into another room, and then I walked back to 729, let myself in and sat there in a complete blue funk. I didn’t know what the devil to do.”

“What did you do?”

“After a while I got the idea that I wanted. I couldn’t afford to let Rose Calvert’s body be found in 728, but if I could move the body over to 729 and then check out of 728 under the name of Ruth Culver, which was the name she had registered under, everything would be all right. If her body was found in 728, the chambermaid would have remembered all about my leaving the place, and given a description of me. Later on she’d have been able to recognize me. Of course, I knew police could trace the gun. But if I could have it appear that nothing unusual had happened in 728, but that the person who was murdered was the one who had checked in at 729, then I would be sending everybody off on a completely false trail.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “What did you do?”

“I did some fast thinking. I wanted to make it appear that the crime had taken place much later than had actually been the case. I waited until I was certain the corridor was clear, then I hurried across and started packing all the baggage in the room. Rose had been using her portable typewriter and there were a lot of fresh carbon papers dropped into the wastebasket. I picked those up, and that was when I realized I had a very complete list of the work she had been doing. She had been making a whole lot of copies, and had used fresh carbon paper. I took the sheets of used carbon paper with me.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“Then I went back to Room 729, telephoned Room Service and asked them what they had for lunch.

“They said it was pretty late for lunch, and I told them I needed something to eat and asked them what they had. They said they could fix me a roast turkey plate, and I told them to bring it up.

“The waiter brought it up, and I paid him in cash, and gave him a good tip so he’d remember me. But I kept my face averted as much as possible.

“Then I ate the dinner and asked him to come up for the dishes.”

“And then?”

“And then, all of a sudden, I realized that Jerry Conway was going to start out to get that list.”

“Go on.”

“Originally, I’d intended to telephone him at the drugstore, and tell him to go and ask for a message which had been left for him at a certain hotel. So suddenly I realized that it might be possible to kill two birds with one stone, and really to pull something artistic.”

“So?” Mason asked.

“So,” she said, “after I called Room Service, I had the waiter come and take the dishes, and then I went down to the drugstore and bought a jar of this prepared black mud that women put on their faces for massages. It spreads smoothly over the face and then, when it dries, it pulls the skin. The general idea is that it smooths out wrinkles and eliminates impurities from the skin and all that. It has an astringent effect and pulls the facial muscles. I knew it would make my face completely unrecognizable.”

“So you put that mud on?” Mason asked.

She nodded, said, “I called up the pay station at the drugstore from the booth in the hotel, and I was even smart enough to call up a few minutes before six-fifteen so that it would look as though someone else had cut in on my program. I had been using a very sweet, dulcet voice when talking to him under the name of Rosalind, and this time I used a voice that was lower pitched. I’ve always been good at changing my voice and mimicking people...”

“Go on, go on,” Mason said, looking at his watch. “We only have a few minutes.

“I take it you left the envelope with the key for Conway to pick up?”

“That’s right.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I just framed that murder on him, Mr. Mason. I felt that he could get out of it a lot better than I could. He had money for attorneys’ fees, he had position—”

“Well, tell me exactly what you did,” Mason said, “so I can get it straightened out.”

“Jerry Conway would have recognized me. He had, of course, seen me a good many times. So I put all of this mud on my face and wrapped a towel around my head, and then I took my clothes off.”

“Why the clothes off?”

She smiled archly. “Well, I felt that a man wouldn’t concentrate so much on my face if he — if I gave him other things to look at.”

Mason grinned. “As it turned out, that was pretty good reasoning. Was the body in 729 when Jerry came up there?”

“No, no, I didn’t dare take that chance. I thought, of course, I could make him take the gun.

“He fell for my scheme hook, line and sinker. He entered the room, and then I came out and apparently was surprised to see him there. I told him I was Rosalind’s roommate, then pretended to get in a panic. I opened the desk and grabbed this gun and cocked it and let my hand keep shaking, and, of course, Jerry Conway did the obvious thing. He was too frightened to do anything else. He grabbed the gun and got out of there.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Then,” she said, “I washed my face, I put on my clothes, I waited until the corridor was empty, and then I tiptoed in and picked up the body... Mr. Mason, it was terrible!”

“You could carry the body all right?” Mason asked.

She said, “I’m strong, Mr. Mason. The girl didn’t weigh over a hundred and eighteen pounds, and I had had a course in first aid as a nurse. I got the body as far as the door, and then was the most awful two or three seconds of my life. I had to take that body across the corridor arid into Room 729. I just had to take a chance that no one would come up in the elevator, and of course there was a possibility someone might open a room door and come out into the corridor. I had to take that chance, but it was only a few feet, and — well, I made it. You see 729 is a suite, and the door of the bedroom was right opposite the door of 728. I just rushed the body in there, dumped it on the bed, then went back, kicked the bedroom door shut. Then I arranged the body on the bed. After that I stepped out in the corridor and went across to 728 to make sure I hadn’t overlooked anything.

“That was when I found the second gun.”

“The second gun?”

She nodded and said, “It was under the bed.”

“What did you do?”

“I put it in the hatbox. And believe me, after that I went over every inch of that room just as carefully as could be, making certain I had everything cleaned out.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Then,” she said, “I hurried back to put the finishing touch on things in 729. The body had started to stiffen pretty badly. She looked as though she had been dumped on the bed instead of lying the way she should. I just forced her left arm down so it dangled, and moved the head over so the hair was hanging down.

“Then I closed the door, went across the hall to Room 728, and very calmly telephoned the desk and told them to send up a bellboy, I wanted to check out.”

“And the bellboy came up?” Mason asked.

“The bellboy came up, and I walked down and checked out. Since Rose had rented the room in the morning, and I was checking out early in the evening, I had to make some explanation. So I told the clerk that my father was critically ill in San Diego and I had to go to him. I said a friend was driving me down. That’s all there was to it.”

“No, it isn’t,” Mason said. “What about that second gun?

She said, “You came here and asked me questions that night, and you remember you said you wanted to use my phone. That phone goes through a switchboard downstairs, and we are charged with calls.

“I was wondering what to do about that gun. After you left, I went downstairs and got the switchboard operator to give me the number you’d called. I called that number and, when the person answered, he said it was the Glade- dell Motel. I did some quick thinking and asked him if a Mr. Jerry Conway was registered there, and he said yes, in Unit 21, and did I want him called. I said no, not to call him, that I was just checking, and hung up quick before they could ask any questions.

“So then I waited until after midnight. I drove down to the motel. Jerry Conway’s car was parked in front of Unit 21, and I slipped the phony list of stockholders’ proxies under the seat of his car, then walked over to the back of the lot. I’d taken a little trowel with me, and I buried that second gun. By that time I didn’t know which gun had been used in committing the murder. But I felt that if things got to a point where I needed to, I could give the police an anonymous tip, saying I was a woman who lived near the motel and that I’d seen someone burying some metallic object that looked like a gun out there in the lot.”

“So,” Mason said, “you were willing to have Conway convicted of murder in order to—”

She met his eyes and said, “Mr. Mason, my husband framed me for murder, and believe me, because of the way things went I was framed for murder. Don’t ever kid yourself, I could have gone to prison for life, or gone to the gas chamber. I had every motive in the world. The murder had been committed with my gun. I had been seen leaving the room where the murdered girl lay. I was up against it. I felt that I could frame enough of a case on Jerry Conway so the police would quit looking for — any other murderer, and I felt absolutely certain that a clever lawyer could keep Jerry Conway from being convicted. I suppose I’ve been guilty of a crime, and now you’ve trapped me. I don’t know how you found out about all this, but I’m coming clean and I’m throwing myself on your mercy.”

Mason looked at his watch and said, “All right, I can’t wait any longer. Paul Drake is serving you with a subpoena to appear as a witness for the defense. Serve the subpoena on her, Paul.”

Paul Drake handed her a subpoena.

Della Street, who had been taking surreptitious notes, looked up and caught Mason’s eye. He raised his eyebrows in silent question, and she nodded, indicating that she had the statement all down.

“All right,” Mason said to Drake, “come on, we’ve got to get back to court.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Myrtle Lamar said.

“What?” Mason asked.

“My face,” she said. “It’s got to be fed.”