The Case of the Daring Decoy

Chapter Fifteen

Driving back to the courthouse, Mason said to Paul Drake, “Paul, this is a damned good lesson in the importance of circumstantial evidence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Circumstantial evidence is the best evidence we have,” Mason said, “but you have to be careful not to misinterpret it.

“Now, look at the circumstantial evidence of the food in the stomach. Doctors are prepared to state that death took place within approximately two hours of the time the food was ingested. Because they know that the woman in Room 729 had food delivered to her around four-thirty, and presumably started eating when the food was delivered, they placed the time of death at almost exactly six-thirty-five to six-forty-five, the exact time that Jerry Conway was there.

“The only difference is the waiter didn’t think there were peas on the dinner menu but peas were found in the stomach of the murder victim. Everyone took it for granted that it was simply a slip-up, a mistake on the part of the waiter in preparing the tray and in remembering what he’d put on there. Actually, it’s the most important clue in the whole case. It shows that the woman whose body was found in 729 couldn’t have been the woman who ordered the dinner which was delivered at four-thirty.”

“Well,” Drake said, “we knew what happened, but how the devil are you going to prove it? A jury isn’t going to believe Mrs. Farrell’s story... Or will it?”

“That depends,” Mason said, “on how much other evidence we can get. And it depends on who killed Rose Calvert.”

“What do you mean?”

“The point that Mrs. Farrell completely missed was that Giff was trying to make it appear that Rose’s death was a suicide. He entered the room, he found the body, there wasn’t any sign of a gun. That was because the murderer had kicked the murder weapon under the bed — unless he threw it there deliberately. Probably he dropped it and then had kicked it under the bed without knowing what he had done. Or perhaps he just kicked it under the bed hoping it wouldn’t be found right away, or not giving a damn and just wanting to get rid of it.”

“You mean, you don’t think Gifford Farrell is the murderer?”

“The evidence points to the contrary,” Mason said. “Why would Gifford Farrell have killed Rose and then discharged another gun into the underside of the mattress so there would be an empty shell in that gun and then have left the gun on the floor by the corpse?”

“So as to implicate his wife,” Drake said.

“But don’t you see,” Mason pointed out, “if he’d done that, he’d have taken the other gun? He wouldn’t have left it there.”

“Perhaps he didn’t know it was there.”

“I’m satisfied he didn’t know it was there,” Mason “said. “But if he had killed her, he would have known it was there, because that was the gun with which she was killed.”

“Oh-oh,” Drake said. “Now I see your point.”

“Therefore,” Mason said, “Gifford Farrell was a victim of circumstances. He tried to make the crime appear a suicide. He was carrying that gun with him, probably for his own protection. He discharged it into the mattress and dropped it by the side of the bed.

“If Mrs. Farrell hadn’t got in such a panic, she would have realized that Gifford was trying to set the stage for suicide. He could very easily have told the authorities that this gun was one he had taken home from the Texas Global, that he had given it to Rose for her own protection, that she had become despondent and had committed suicide. But when Mrs. Farrell saw that gun, and saw her husband leaving the room after having heard the shot — which must have been the shot he fired into the underside of the mattress — she became panic-stricken and immediately felt that he was trying to frame the murder on her. So she led with her chin.”

“And then she tried to frame it on Conway?”

“That’s right,” Mason said.

“Well, you can mix the case up all to hell,” Drake said, “but the trouble is, Mason, you’ve got too much of a reputation for mixing things up. The jury is pretty apt to think all this is a big razzle-dazzle, cooked up by a lawyer to mix things up so his client won’t be convicted. If you can’t shake this damned hotel clerk in his testimony that Rose Calvert was the one who checked into Room 729 claiming she was the secretary for Gerald Boswell, you’re hooked.”

Mason said, “What I’ve got to do is to find out what actually happened.”

“When do we eat?” Myrtle Lamar asked.

Mason said, “Myrtle, you’re going to have to feed your own face.”

“What?”

“We’ll give you money for the best lunch in town,” Mason said, “but we’re going to be busy.”

She pouted. “That wasn’t the way it was promised. Paul was going to take me to lunch. I want to have lunch with him.”

“I have to be in court,” Drake said.

“No, you don’t. You’re not trying the case — and I’ll tell you one other thing, you hadn’t better leave me alone, running around here. I know too much now. You’ve got to keep me under surveillance, as you detectives call it.”

Mason laughed, said, “You win, Myrtle. Paul, you’re going to have to take her to lunch.”

“But I want to see what happens in court.”

“Nothing too much is going to be happening in court,” Mason said. “Not right away. The district attorney is stalling, trying to find some way of accounting for that bullet in the underside of the mattress. He wants to prove that I shot it there and he’s just about ready to call Inskip so they can lay a foundation to involve me in the case as an accessory.

“So you can count on the fact that he’ll stall things along just as much as he can, and this time I’m inclined to play along with him because I want to find out what happened.

“Someone murdered Rose Calvert. I want to find out who.”

“Well,” Drake said, “don’t ever overlook the fact that it could well have been Mrs. Gifford Farrell. She had the room across the corridor from the girl. She hated the girl’s guts. She was seen by a chambermaid coming out of the girl’s room... Good Lord! Perry, don’t let her pull the wool over your eyes by telling a convincing story which, after all, has for its sole purpose getting herself off the hook.”

“I’m thinking of that,” Mason said.

“And,” Drake went on, “she’s the one who buried the murder weapon down there at the motel... Hang it, Perry! The more you think of it, the more logical the whole thing becomes. She must have been the one who committed the murder.”

“There’s just one thing against it,” Mason said.

“What?” Drake asked.

“Circumstantial evidence,” Mason told him.

“Such as what?”

“Why didn’t she give Jerry Conway the murder weapon instead of the weapon that Gifford had planted there to make the death appear suicide?”

Drake tugged at the lobe of his ear for a moment, then said, “Hell’s bells, Perry! This is one case I can’t figure. Things are coming a little too fast for me. Where do I take Myrtle to lunch?”

“Someplace not too far from the courthouse,” Mason said.

“Well, let me out here. This is a darned good restaurant. We’ll take a cab and come to court when we’re finished... How much of a lunch do you want, Myrtle?”

“Not too much,” she said. “I’ll have two dry Martinis to start, then a shrimp cocktail, and after that a filet mignon with potatoes au gratin, a little garlic toast, a few vegetables on the side such as asparagus or sweet corn, then some mince pie a la mode, and a big cup of black coffee. That will last me until evening.

“Believe me, it’s not very often that one of us girls gets an opportunity to look at the left-hand side of the menu without paying a bit of attention to what’s printed on the right-hand side.”

Mason glanced at Paul Drake and nodded. “It may be just as well to keep her out of circulation until the situation clarifies itself.”

Mason stopped the car and let Paul and Myrtle Lamar out.

“That’s a scheming little package,” Della Street said when

Mason started the car again. “I hope Paul Drake doesn’t get tangled up with her.”

“I hope Paul Drake really turns her inside out,” Mason said.

“What do you mean? She’s turned inside out,” Della said.

Mason shook his head. “For all we know, Della, she could have been the one who committed the murder. Anyone around the hotel could.”

“Including Bob King?” Della Street asked.

“Including Bob King.”

“Well, I’d certainly like to see you wrap it around his neck,” she said. “But somehow, Chief, I’m inclined to agree with Paul. I think that Mrs. Farrell is mixed in this thing so deep—”

“That’s just the point,” Mason said. “But then we get back to that business of circumstantial evidence. If she had killed her, she wouldn’t have given Jerry Conway the wrong gun.”

“What about the gun that did the fatal shooting?” Della asked. “What have they found out about it?”

“So far they haven’t told us,” Mason said. “But the grapevine has it that they can’t tell a thing about the gun, because it was stolen from a hardware store a year and a half ago along with half a dozen other guns.

“Within thirty minutes of the time of the crime, police spotted a car loaded with a bunch of tough-looking kids speeding along. It was about three o’clock in the morning so they took after it. There was quite a chase before they caught the kids. The kids admitted that when they saw the police were taking after them, they threw everything they had taken out of the car windows as they were speeding along. There were half a dozen revolvers, three or four 22 rifles, a lot of ammunition, and some jackknives. Police recovered most of the stuff, but they didn’t find a couple of guns, and quite a few of the knives. Almost anyone could have picked up this murder weapon the next day.”

“They have the general locality?” Della Street asked.

“That’s right.”

“Was it near anyplace where Mrs. Farrell would have been?”

“It was at the other end of town,” Mason said.

“Well,” she told him, “you like circumstantial evidence so much. This is an opportunity to put a jigsaw puzzle together.”

“You can put it together two or three different ways,” Mason said, “but the pieces don’t all fit.

“The trouble with circumstantial evidence isn’t with the evidence, but with the reasoning that starts interpreting that evidence... I’m kicking myself over those peas in the dead girl’s stomach. There was the most significant clue in the whole case, and damned if I didn’t discount it and think it was simply a waiter’s mistake.

“I should have cross-examined that waiter up one side and down the other and made him show that he was absolutely positive those peas couldn’t have been on the tray taken to 729. I should have made that the big point in the case.

“However, I knew that the peas were in the dead girl’s stomach and therefore, like everybody else, thought it must have been a mistake on the part of the waiter, and didn’t pay too much attention to it.”

“Well,” Della Street told him, “you’ve got an assorted set of monkey wrenches now that you can drop into the district attorney’s machinery whenever you want to.”

“But this time,” Mason told her, “I have to be right.”

They rode up in the elevator to the courtroom and entered just in time to take their seats at the counsel table before court was reconvened.

Judge DeWitt said, “The police officer was on the witness stand.”

Elliott, on his feet, said, “If the Court please, I have a few more questions on direct examination to ask of this witness.”

“Very well,” Judge DeWitt said.

Elliott’s questions indicated that he was still sparring for time.

Within ten minutes after court had reconvened, however, the door opened and both Hamilton Burger and Alexander Redfield, the ballistics expert, came tiptoeing into the courtroom.

Redfield took his seat in court, and Hamilton Burger, ponderously tiptoeing forward, reached the counsel table, leaned over and whispered to Elliott.

An expression of beaming good nature was on the district attorney’s face.

Elliott listened to Burger’s whisper, nodded his head, then said, “That’s all. I have no further questions.”

“No cross-examination.”

Hamilton Burger arose ponderously. “Call Frederick Inskip to the stand.”

Inskip came forward and was sworn, and Hamilton Burger, walking around the end of the counsel table to examine him where he would appear to best advantage in front of the jurors, gave every indication of being completely satisfied with the turn of events.

“Mr. Inskip,” he said, “what is your occupation? And what was your occupation on the sixteenth and seventeenth of October?”

“A private detective.”

“Were you employed on the sixteenth and seventeenth of October by Paul Drake?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And on what case were you working?”

“The murder at the Redfern Hotel.”

“And did you know who had employed Mr. Drake?”

“Perry Mason.”

“How did you know that?”

“I was instructed that Mr. Mason, who was the man in charge of the case, would join me.”

“Join you? Where?”

“At the Redfern Hotel.”

“You mean you had checked into the Redfern Hotel?”

“I had, yes, sir.”

“At what time?”

“Well, it was sometime after the murder. I was instructed to go to the hotel and register in Room 728.”

“Why 728? Do you know?”

“I wasn’t told.”

“But 728 is right across the hall from 729?”

“Yes, sir. The door of 728 is exactly across the hall from the bedroom door of 729. 729 is a suite, and has two doors.”

“I see,” Hamilton Burger said. “Now, how did you arrange to get in Room 728?”

Judge DeWitt said, “Just a moment. Is this pertinent? This took place after the murder was committed. It was a conversation, as I take it, between Paul Drake and a man who was in his employ. It was without the presence of the defendant.”

“But,” Hamilton Burger said, “we propose to show you, Your Honor, in fact, I think we have shown that the conversation was the result of the instructions of Mr. Perry Mason, who was then acting as attorney for the defendant in this case.”

Judge DeWitt looked down at Mason and said, “I haven’t as yet heard an objection from the defense.”

“We have no objection to make, Your Honor,” Mason said. “We’re quite willing to have any fact in this case that will shed any light on what happened presented to this jury.”

“Very well,” Judge DeWitt said, “it seeming that there is no objection on the part of the defense, the Court will permit this line of testimony.”

“What happened?” Hamilton Burger asked Inskip.

“The phone rang. Paul Drake told me that Mr. Mason, the attorney for whom he was working, would be up, that I was to leave the door unlocked so he could come in without knocking.”

“Now, just how did you get Room 728?” Hamilton Burger asked.

“Oh, that was easy. I said I wanted something not too high up and not too low down. They offered me 519 which was vacant. I asked them to see a floor plan of the hotel and said, ‘No,’ and asked them if they had something perhaps a couple of floors higher up. They said they’d had a checkout in 728 and that was available if I wanted it, and I said I’d take it.”

“Now, after receiving that telephone call, what did you do?”

“I left the door unlocked.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, it was about — I’m sorry to say I didn’t notice the exact time, but it was around eleven or eleven-thirty — somewhere along there on the morning of the seventeenth that the door opened abruptly and Mr. Mason came in.”

“Now you’re referring to sometime around eleven o’clock on the morning of October seventeenth?”

“Yes.”

“And Mr. Mason entered the room?”

“Yes.”

“And what happened?”

“Well, we had some conversation. He asked me to identify myself as working for Drake, and then he asked if I’d looked the room over, and I said I had generally. And he asked if I had a flashlight in my bag.”

“And did you have such a flashlight?”

“Yes.”

“And then what happened?”

“Mr. Mason looked all around the room carefully with the flashlight, and then he asked me to help him take the sheets and blankets off the bed.”

“You did that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then he raised the mattress and found a bullet hole in the underside of the mattress.”

There was an audible, collective gasp from spectators in the courtroom.

Judge DeWitt leaned forward. “A bullet hole?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“How do you know it was a bullet hole?” Judge DeWitt asked sharply.

“Because working together, we got the bullet out of the hole.”

“How did you get it out?” Hamilton Burger asked.

“We cut a wire coat hanger to pieces and made an instrument that would get the bullet out. First we probed and found there was a bullet in there, and then we got the bullet out.”

“And what happened to that bullet?”

“I kept it in my possession.”

“Did you mark the bullet so you could identify it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“At whose suggestion?”

“At Mr. Mason’s suggestion.”

“I show you a bullet and ask you if that was the bullet which you extracted from the mattress?”

The witness looked at the bullet and said, “It is.”

“Do you know how Mr. Mason knew that bullet hole was in the mattress?” Hamilton Burger asked.

“No, sir.”

“But he did suggest to you that there might well be something in the mattress?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And asked you to help him remove the blankets and sheets?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then he turned up the mattress?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And indicated this bullet hole with his flashlight?”

“Yes, sir.”

Hamilton Burger smiled triumphantly. “That’s all.”

“No questions on cross-examination,” Mason said.

Hamilton Burger seemed somewhat nonplussed by Mason’s attitude.

“Call Alexander Redfield,” Burger said.

Alexander Redfield came forward.

“I show you the bullet which has been identified by the witness Inskip,” Hamilton Burger said. “Do you know what gun discharged that bullet?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What gun?”

“A Smith & Wesson gun, numbered C 48809.”

“A gun which has previously been introduced in evidence here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The gun which the defendant Conway admitted he had in his possession?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now then,” Hamilton Burger said, “there are two bullets in this case, and two guns.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There is a Colt, numbered 7408 8?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And a bullet was fired from that gun?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what bullet was that?”

“That was the fatal bullet.”

“That was the bullet that was given you by the autopsy surgeon as having been the bullet which caused the death of Rose Calvert?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that bullet was fired from that Colt revolver?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And this bullet which you have now identified is a bullet which was fired from the Smith & Wesson, the one which is received in evidence and which bears the number C 48809. This is the same gun which the evidence shows Mr. Conway, the defendant in this case, produced and handed to the authorities as being the gun which he claimed had been pointed at him in Room 729 and which he had taken away from this mysterious woman whom he had described in such detail?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s all,” Hamilton Burger said.

“No cross-examination,” Mason said.

Judge DeWitt frowned at Mason.

“I’m going to recall Robert King,” Hamilton Burger said.

King came forward and took the witness stand.

“You have already been sworn,” the district attorney said. “I am going to ask you what the hotel records show in regard to Room 728.”

“It was rented to a Ruth Culver.”

“And what happened to Ruth Culver?”

“She checked out of the hotel at about six-fifty on the evening of October sixteenth.”

“When did she rent the room?”

“Around ten o’clock in the morning of October sixteenth.”

“Who checked her out?”

“I presented her with the bill, which she paid in cash.”

“And then what?”

“It was early enough to have the room made up so we could rerent it again if we needed to that night,”

“Cross-examine,” Hamilton Burger said.

Mason said, “You didn’t see Ruth Culver when she checked in, did you?”

“No, sir.”

“You weren’t on duty at that time?”

“No, sir.”

“So for all you know, the woman who checked out of Room 728 may not have been the same woman who registered in there?”

“I know she was the woman who checked out of 728.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she paid the bill, and the bellboy went up and brought the baggage down.”

“Quite right. You know some woman checked out of Room 728 but you don’t know it was the same woman who checked in, do you?”

“Well, I didn’t see her when she checked in. I wasn’t on duty.”

“For all you know of your own knowledge,” Mason said, “the woman who rented 728 could well have been Rose Calvert, whose body was found in Room 729.”

“Oh, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said, “I object to this question. It is argumentative. It is completely incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and it shows the straws at which counsel is clutching.”

“The question is argumentative,” Judge DeWitt said.

“If the Court please,” Mason said, “it is a logical question. The initials of Ruth Culver and Rose Calvert are the same. The baggage which was taken down from 728 and the initials ‘R.C.’ and—”

“Your Honor, Your Honor!” Hamilton Burger shouted. “I object to this statement. I assign the making of it as misconduct. I point out to the court that the whole specious, fabricated nature of this defense is now coming into court in its true light.

“The defendant in this case admittedly had the Smith & Wesson revolver in his possession from around six-thirty-five on the evening of the sixteenth until it was surrendered to the officers on the morning of the seventeenth.

“The defendant had consulted Perry Mason as his attorney, and presumably had turned the gun over to him. At least he had the opportunity to do so.

“Mr. Mason, finding out that there had been a check-out on the seventh floor of the hotel during the evening, had ample opportunity to get to that room to fire a shot in the mattress, then instruct a detective to go to that room and be there so that Mr. Mason could make a grandstand of discovering the bullet hole in the mattress the next morning.

“This is evidence of unprofessional conduct on the part of counsel. It makes him an accessory after the fact—”

“Now, just a minute! Just a minute!” Judge DeWitt interrupted, banging his gavel down on the desk. “We’ll have no accusations of this nature at this time, Mr. District Attorney. You have objected to the question on the ground that it is argumentative. In the light of Mr. Mason’s statement, it is now the opinion of the Court that the question is not argumentative. Counsel is simply asking the witness what is a self-evident fact, that since the witness doesn’t know who checked into Room 728, it could have been anybody. It could have been the young woman who was subsequently found murdered. It could have been anyone.

“Now, the Court suggests that, if you want to show who this person was who checked into Room 728, if it becomes important for any reason, you can produce that person and have her testify, or in the event you can’t produce her, and any attempt is made to show that the person who checked into 728 was the person whose body was found in 729, you can produce the register and have a handwriting expert testify as to the differences in handwriting.”

Mason grinned and said, “And when he does that, Your Honor, the handwriting expert will have to testify that the Ruth Culver who signed the register and checked into 728 was the Rose Calvert whose body was found in 729.”

“Your Honor! Your Honor!” Hamilton Burger shouted. “This is improper. That is an improper statement. That is misconduct on the part of defense counsel.”

“Well,” Judge DeWitt said, “let’s not have so much excitement about this. After all, the matter is perfectly obvious. Have you checked the registration, Mr. District Attorney?”

Hamilton Burger’s face purpled. “No, Your Honor, we haven’t because there is no need for so doing. We don’t need to check the handwriting of every person who registered in the Redfern Hotel on the morning of the sixteenth in order to negative some perfectly fallacious theory which the defense is trying to advance.”

“Well, if you’re not going to anticipate the defense, and call witnesses to refute it in advance,” Judge DeWitt said, “I fail to see the reason for calling the witness Inskip.”

“We want to show “the tactics of defense counsel.”

“Well, go ahead and show them,” Judge DeWitt said, “but refrain from personalities, and if I were you, Mr. Prosecutor, I would put on my own case, and then in the event defense makes any claims, you have an opportunity to call witnesses in rebuttal. It always is a dangerous practice to try and anticipate a defense and negative it in advance, and it is not in accordance with the best practice.

“Proceed with the cross-examination of this witness, Mr. Mason.”

“No further cross-examination,” Mason said.

“Call your next witness,” Judge DeWitt said to Hamilton Burger.

“I will call Norton Barclay Calvert, the husband of the dead woman,” Hamilton Burger said. “Come forward, Mr. Calvert, and be sworn.”

There was a moment’s delay while the bailiff’s voice could be heard outside of the courtroom calling Norton Calvert.

A few moments later the door opened and Norton Calvert entered the courtroom and came forward to the witness stand.

He took the oath, settled himself on the witness stand, and Hamilton Burger said, “Your name is Norton Barclay Calvert, and you are the surviving husband of Rose M. Calvert?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have identified the body of Rose Calvert? You saw that in the morgue?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When did you first know that your wife was dead?”

Mason said, “That is objected to, if the Court please, on the ground that it’s incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial. It makes no difference to the issues in this case when he first knew his wife was dead.”

Judge DeWitt nodded his head.

“Just a moment, before the Court rules,” Hamilton Burger said. “May I be heard?”

“Certainly, Mr. Prosecutor.”

“We propose to show by this witness,” Burger said, “that he was appraised early in the morning of the seventeenth that his wife had been murdered, that this was long before the police knew the identity of the body. We propose to show that he was advised by Mr. Perry Mason, who was acting as attorney for the defendant, and that the only way Mr. Mason could possibly have known the identity of the murdered woman was by having his client give him that information. And the only way his client could have secured the information was by seeing and recognizing the murdered woman.”

Judge DeWitt looked at Mason. “That would seem to put something of a different aspect on the situation, Mr. Mason.”

“How is he going to prove that the only way I had of knowing the identity of the murdered woman was because of something my client told me?” Mason asked.

“We’ll prove it by inference,” Hamilton Burger said.

“I think there is no necessity for having any further discussion on this matter,” Judge DeWitt said. “I dislike to have offers of proof made in front of the jury. I think the testimony of the witness will speak for itself, but under the circumstances the Court is going to overrule the objection.”

“When did you first know that your wife had been murdered?” Hamilton Burger asked.

“About one o’clock on the morning of the seventeenth.”

“Where were you?”

“At my home in Elsinore.”

“How did you find out your wife was dead?”

“Mr. Mason told me she had been murdered.”

“By Mr. Mason, you mean Perry Mason, the attorney for the defendant here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, let’s not have any misunderstanding about this,” Hamilton Burger said. “You learned of your wife’s death through a statement made by Perry Mason to the effect that she had been murdered, and that statement was made around one o’clock in the morning of October seventeenth in Elsinore, California?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ Cross-examine!” Hamilton Burger snapped at Perry Mason.

“Do you remember what time I got to your house?” Mason asked.

“I think it was about twelve-forty-five or so.”

“Do you know when I left?”

“I know that you had left by a quarter past one,” he said. “You were there about half an hour, I think.”

“Didn’t I tell you that I thought your wife had been murdered after I had looked at pictures of your wife?”

“I showed you some pictures, but you seemed pretty positive. Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone down to see me at that hour in the morning.”

“Hamilton Burger grinned.

Judge DeWitt rebuked the witness. “Kindly refrain from arguing with counsel. Simply answer questions.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what you told me, but you woke me up out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night to tell me.”

“I woke you up?”

“Yes.”

“You had been sleeping?”

“I was sound asleep.”

“You went to bed when?”

“Nine-thirty or ten.”

“Had no trouble getting to sleep?”

“Certainly not.”

“And slept soundly until I came?”

“Yes.”

“Hadn’t got up even to take a smoke?”

“No.”

“You know as a heavy smoker that about the first thing a smoker does on awakening is to reach for a cigarette?”

“Certainly.”

“Yet after you let me in, you sat there for five minutes before you had a cigarette, didn’t you?”

“I... I don’t remember that so well. I had been — I can’t recall.”

Mason said, “Didn’t I tell you, Mr. Calvert, that I got your address from a letter which you had written your wife?”

“I don’t remember,” Calvert said. “I was pretty much broken up, and I don’t remember too much about what you said about how you got there, but I remember you came there and told me my wife had been murdered.”

“You had written your wife a letter, hadn’t you?”

“Objected to as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial and not proper cross-examination,” Hamilton Burger said. “My interrogation was only as to a conversation with Mr. Mason. If Mr. Mason wants to make this man his own witness, he can do so.”

“It is entirely proper to show the attitude of the witness and possible bias on the part of the witness,” Judge DeWitt said. “I don’t see what difference it makes.”

“Well,” Mason said, “in order to come within the technical rules of evidence, I’ll reframe the question and ask him if he didn’t tell me that he had written his wife a letter?”

“I don’t remember. I think I did.”

“And,” Mason said, “isn’t it a fact that your wife, Rose Calvert, wrote and told you that she wanted to go to Reno and get a divorce?”

“Yes.”

“That she wanted you to hire counsel to represent you so you could make things easier for her?”

“Yes.”

“And when I rang the doorbell early on the morning of the seventeenth of October and told you that I wanted to talk with you about your wife, that I was an attorney, didn’t you tell me that you wouldn’t consent to anything, that you wouldn’t do anything to make it easier for her to get a divorce?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t you tell me that you had answered the letter she had written and told her something to that effect?”

“I believe I did, yes.”

“And didn’t I tell you that that letter was in the mailbox at her apartment?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Oh yes, you do,” Mason said.

“The reason you didn’t go to the Elsinore police station to find out if your wife had been murdered until considerably later on the morning of the seventeenth was that you suddenly realized that this letter you had mailed your wife would direct suspicion to you. You had told your wife in that letter that you would kill her before you’d let her marry anyone else, didn’t you?”

The witness looked at Mason with sullen hostility, then slowly shook his head.

“No, I didn’t say anything like that.”

“And,” Mason said, “the minute I told you that letter was in the mailbox, you knew that that was a clue pointing toward you that you had forgotten, and that you had to go in and get that letter out of the mailbox before you asked the police to find out if your wife had been murdered.”

“That’s not true!”

Mason, frowning thoughtfully, turned to survey the courtroom, studying the faces of the spectators.

At that moment the door opened, and Paul Drake and Myrtle Lamar entered the courtroom.

Mason said, “If the Court please, I notice that Myrtle Lamar has just entered the courtroom. I would like to ask Miss Lamar to come forward and stand by me for a moment. And I would like to ask the witness to arise.”

“What’s the reason for all this?” Hamilton Burger asked.

“Myrtle Lamar,” Mason said, “as one of the elevator operators at the Redfern Hotel, has her own means of making an identification of persons who go up in the elevator. Kindly step forward, Miss Lamar.”

Mason moved over to the swinging gate which divided the bar from the courtroom and said, “Right this way, please.”

Myrtle Lamar moved through the gate.

“I object,” Hamilton Burger said.

“On what grounds?” Judge DeWitt asked.

“He can’t examine two witnesses at once,” Hamilton Burger said.

“He’s not trying to,” Judge DeWitt said. “He is, as I understand it, trying to make an identification.”

“If the Court please,” Mason said, “I feel that perhaps I do owe Court and counsel an explanation. It seems that Miss Lamar makes a point of studying the feet of the persons who go up and down in the elevators. I notice that this witness has a peculiar habit of turning his right foot in at a sharp angle. I also notice he is wearing a distinctive shoe, a high-laced shoe with a heavy box-toe cap. I believe these shoes are advertised by one of the well-known mail order houses as being ideal for service-station attendants in that they will not slip and are resistant to oil and gasoline.”

Mason turned back to the witness. “Stand up, please.”

Calvert sullenly got to his feet.

“Now, just a minute, just a minute,” Hamilton Burger said, pushing back from his chair and lumbering toward the witness. “I want to see this.”

Mason said to Calvert, “You’re holding your right foot so the toe is pointed straight ahead. Do you always stand that way?”

“Of course,” Calvert said.

Abruptly Myrtle Lamar started to laugh. “That’s not true,” she said in a loud, clear voice. “I’d never forget those shoes. When he stands relaxed, his right toe is pointed in. He’s deliberately holding it—”

“Order!” Judge DeWitt shouted. “You will not give any testimony at this time, Miss Lamar. You are being brought up here purely for the purpose of identification. You will now return to your seat in the courtroom. The witness will resume his seat in the witness chair.”

Hamilton Burger said, “Your Honor, I object. I move all of this statement be stricken as not being the statement of a witness, and—”

“The motion is granted!” Judge DeWitt snapped. “Mr. Mason can, of course, call Miss Lamar as his witness if he desires, but her statement will be stricken from the evidence.”

“Sit down,” Mason said to Calvert.

Mason stood for a moment, looking at the witness with searching eyes. Then he said in a tone that was not without sympathy, “You loved your wife, didn’t you, Calvert?”

Calvert nodded.

“You felt you couldn’t live without her. You wanted her to come back to you.”

The witness was silent.

“And,” Mason said, “you made up your mind that if you couldn’t have her, no one else was going to have her. You were willing to kill her and probably intended to kill yourself at the same time. Then you lost your nerve and didn’t go through with the suicide.”

The witness shifted his position uncomfortably. For a swift moment his lips twisted on a choking sob, then he regained control of himself.

Mason said, “If the Court please, I feel that the circumstances are highly unusual. I would like to have a ten-minute recess so that I can interview certain witnesses.”

“I object to any continuance at this time,” Hamilton Burger said in sputtering protest.

“Is it absolutely necessary to have a recess at this time in order to interview these witnesses, Mr. Mason?” Judge DeWitt asked.

“It is, Your Honor. Mrs. Farrell was having detectives shadow Rose Calvert’s apartment. I can’t say for certain what time these detectives went off duty on the night of the sixteenth and the morning of the seventeenth, but I am hoping that one of these detectives can testify that this witness was seen going to the mailbox and taking this incriminating letter he had written out of the mailbox so the police wouldn’t find it when they came to search the apartment after the body had been identified.”

“Your Honor, I object to these statements being made in front of the jury,” Hamilton Burger said. “This is simply a grandstand—”

“Counsel will refrain from personalities,” Judge DeWitt said sharply. “The Court has previously stated that it dislikes to have offers of proof made in front of the jury. However, this statement was in response to a question asked by the Court itself, and the question was prompted by the fact that the prosecution objected to the recess. The Court feels that under the peculiar circumstances it is only fair to grant the motion, and Court will take a ten-minute recess.”

Mason hurried through the swinging gate in the bar to Paul Drake. “Put a shadow on Calvert,” he said.

Drake said, “Perry, you know those detectives went off duty at around one-thirty on the morning of the seventeenth. There was no one there to see Calvert take that letter, and—”

Mason said in a low voice, “In poker, Paul, you sometimes shove in a stack of blue chips when you only have a pair of deuces in your hand. Get busy and follow Calvert. I think he’s going to skip out.”

Calvert, walking doggedly toward the door, was suddenly confronted by Myrtle Lamar. She said, “You know good and well that I took you up in the elevator on the sixteenth, the day of the murder, and I took you down again. When we got to the seventh floor you asked me—”

Suddenly Calvert shoved her out of the way and started running through the door of the courtroom and pell-mell down the corridor.

“Stop him!” someone screamed. “Stop that man!”

Two spectators tried to grab Calvert. He engaged in a wild struggle with them. Officers ran up and grabbed the man’s arms. His wrists were handcuffed behind his back.

There was pandemonium in the corridor.