The Case of the Daring Divorcee

Chapter Ten

Hamilton Burger, marching into the president’s office, proceeded to take charge of the Hastings business enterprises.

“I want all of the employees in here where I can talk with them,” he said. “I am Hamilton Burger, the district attorney. This is Lieutenant Tragg of the homicide division of the metropolitan police, and I have with me Mr. Perry Mason, an attorney who is representing Adelle Sterling Hastings, the widow of Garvin S. Hastings. And this is his secretary, Miss Della Street.

“Now, I want to get everybody together and I want some information about things that have happened here.”

There was an authoritative ring to Hamilton Burger’s voice, an ability to impress people and inspire confidence, and within a few minutes the big office was crowded with employees.

“First,” Hamilton Burger said, “I want to know who’s in charge.”

“I am,” a man said.

“And who are you?”

“I’m Connely Maynard. I have for some time been directly under Garvin Hastings.”

“All right, come up here by me,” Burger said.

Maynard, a man in his late thirties with high cheekbones, had steady gray eyes and a firm mouth which cut in a wide straight line above his massive jaw. He moved over to Hamilton Burger’s side.

“What do you know about Hastings’ affairs?” Burger asked him.

“I know virtually everything, Mr. Burger.”

“Did Hastings have a gun?”

“He did. Actually he had two guns.”

“What do you know about them?”

“They were, I believe, identical guns. Hastings purchased one gun which he kept in his house for protection. After he and his wife separated he purchased another gun. He gave her one and kept one. I don’t know whether he gave her the more recent purchase or whether he gave her the one he had, and kept the more recent purchase for himself.”

Burger looked at the semicircle of curious, anxious faces, said, “There’s a Simley Beason here?”

Beason stepped forward.

“Now, just what’s your capacity?” Burger asked.

Connely Maynard said, “Mr. Beason is directly under me. I have charge of the entire enterprises, Beason has charge of running the office.”

Burger regarded Beason. “What do you know about Mr. Hastings’ affairs?”

“Quite a bit,” Beason said modestly, “perhaps not as much as Connely Maynard but still I know quite a bit.”

“You knew about the two guns?”

“Yes.”

“How well do you know Adelle Hastings?”

“I know her quite well. I think all the older employees here do, Mr. Burger. She was employed as secretary before she and Garvin Hastings were married.”

“Was she popular?” Burger asked.

“I think she was.”

Burger turned to Maynard. “What do you think?”

Maynard hesitated for a moment, said, “I believe Adelle Sterling, before she became Adelle Hastings, was a very competent secretary. However, since she was Mr. Hastings’ personal secretary, my contact with her was confined to having her co-operate with me in the execution of instructions given by Mr. Hastings. I think that Beason, as the manager of the office, had more contact with her.”

“Hastings was married when she first started working here?”

“Yes.”

“To whom?”

“Minerva Hastings.”

“And what became of that marriage?”

“There was a divorce.”

Burger looked at Beason. “Did Adelle Hastings have anything to do with that divorce?”

Beason said, “Minerva thought so.”

Burger looked around at the people in the office.

“Adelle broke up the marriage,” Maynard said quietly.

“All right,” Burger said, “we’ll dig into this in private. Now then, what I want to know is this: Who went to Perry Mason’s office at six o’clock this morning?”

“I did,” Simley Beason said.

“What did you do there?”

“I took a gun out of a desk drawer.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because,” Beason said with some feeling, “an attempt was being made to frame Adelle Hastings for something, and I didn’t propose to stand for it.”

“What’s your interest in the matter?”

“I wanted to see fair play.”

“What was the thing for which she was being framed?”

“I know now it was murder.”

“But you didn’t know then?”

“No.”

“But you did know that it was something serious enough for you to be taking a chance on larceny?”

“I didn’t stop to figure the legal effect of what I was doing.”

“Why did you go up there at six o’clock in the morning?”

“Because I wanted to get into the office. I found out that the cleaning woman started on Mr. Mason’s office at six o’clock in the morning.”

“We’ll go into some of this later and in private,” Hamilton Burger said grimly. “What I want to know now is what you did with the gun.”

“I wrapped that gun in tissue paper, then I wrapped it in heavy brown paper. I sealed the brown paper with transparent adhesive tape, then I typed a label stating what was in the package and fastened that label with adhesive tape to the paper, then I signed my name across the seals and put the sealed package in the bottom of my bag of golf clubs.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I put the golf clubs in my locker, locked the door of the locker, put the key to the locker back in my desk drawer in its accustomed place. Then later on when Mr. Hastings didn’t show up for his ten o’clock appointment I tried to call him, found that the tape recording answering service was still on and I drove out to Hastings’ house.”

“Did you get in?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Mr. Hastings kept a key here in the office so that in case it became necessary for him to send anyone out to the house there would be a key. Sometimes he would call on long distance telephone with instructions for someone to get an article from his house, perhaps a suitcase packed with fresh clothes, perhaps some papers which he had left at the house. I’ve been over all this with the police, answered all their questions and—”

“Never mind what you’ve been over with the police,” Burger snapped. “You’re going over it again, all of it. You’re answering my questions now. Where was that key kept?”

“In the closet of Mr. Hastings’ private office.”

“That’s this office?”

“Yes.”

“Show me the closet.”

Beason walked over to the closet, opened the door, said, “The key hangs on this nail here.”

“It’s not there now,” Burger said.

“No, sir,” Beason said. “The police took it from me this morning.”

“It was generally known where that key was kept?” Burger asked.

“I would assume so.”

“All right, now what happened to that gun after you put it in the golf bag?”

“I was summoned to Mr. Mason’s office.”

“By whom?”

“By Perry Mason.”

“And what happened there?”

“He accused me of taking the gun. I admitted it.”

“Then what happened?”

“I telephoned Rosalie Blackburn, my secretary, and asked her to bring it to Mr. Mason’s office.”

“Which one is Rosalie Blackburn?” Burger asked.

“I am,” the secretary said, stepping forward.

“All right, what did you do?”

“I got the key to the locker, took out the golf clubs, turned the golf bag upside down, took out the package and delivered it to Mr. Mason’s office.”

“What was the condition of the package when you first saw it?” Burger asked.

“It had been cut open with a very sharp knife.”

“And what did you do about that?”

“Nothing. I could see there was a gun inside the paper. It fell out of the package to the floor when I turned the golf bag upside down.”

“What did you do then?”

“I picked up the gun, wrapped it back in the paper and took the package to Mr. Beason at Mr. Mason’s office.”

“All right,” Burger said wearily, “now I want to know who cut open that package?... Come on, speak up.”

There was silence.

Burger said, “Very well, I’m going to tell all of you something. This is a murder case. We’re not playing games here. This is a very serious matter. I want you all to understand something about the law, as well as the facts.

“Garvin Hastings was killed in his bed while he was asleep. When you kill a sleeping man it isn’t manslaughter, it isn’t second-degree murder. It’s not done in the heat of passion, it’s done as the result of cold-blooded, deliberate planning. It’s first-degree murder and the penalty for first-degree murder is either death or life imprisonment.

“Any person who conceals evidence or tries to aid and abet the murderer becomes an accessory. Any person who tries to tamper with evidence is guilty of a crime.

“It is quite evident that someone has been tampering with evidence. We know that Simley Beason did. I am going to hold him strictly accountable. It also appears that after he had tampered with the evidence, some person opened that package. Now, I want to know who did it and why it was done and whether there was any substitution of weapons or any tampering with evidence.

“While you’re all here some person who has significant information may not care to come forward and disclose it, but I want you to realize that you have a duty to disclose everything you know, and I feel sure that in an office this size evidence couldn’t have been tampered with without someone knowing something, at least some suspicious circumstance.

“Now then, my office is going to be wide open for any incoming telephone calls and Lieutenant Tragg here, at Homicide at police headquarters, is going to be anxious to find out what happened.

“If any one of you people have any knowledge, I want you to get to a telephone sometime before the close of business this afternoon and give us that information.

“I want to impress upon you that this is a murder case and that we’re not going to have any fooling around with— Who’s this?”

The people near the door were thrust aside.

A thick-set individual with an aggressive manner pushed his way forward.

“I’m Huntley L. Banner, Mr. Burger,” he said. “I haven’t met you but I’ve seen you in court several times.”

“And who are you?” Burger asked.

“I’m an attorney. I represented Garvin Hastings in his lifetime and I am representing his widow at the moment.”

“I thought Mason was representing his widow,” Burger said.

Banner said, “Mr. Mason is representing Adelle Hastings. I am representing the widow, Minerva Hastings.”

“Wasn’t there a divorce?”

“I think I’ll let Mrs. Hastings answer that question,” Banner said, and again turned toward the door.

The people nearest the door fell back, and a woman in her early thirties entered the room.

She was a striking brunette. Her chin was up, her eyes were flashing.

Banner took her arm and said, “This is Garvin Hastings’ widow. This is Minerva Shelton Hastings. She owns all this business.”

“Didn’t you get a divorce in Nevada?” Burger asked her.

“I did not,” she said. “I went to Nevada and established a residence. I filed a divorce suit. I did not carry it through to completion.”

“What!” Simley Beason exclaimed.

She smiled at him triumphantly and said, “I did not carry it through to completion.”

“But,” Beason exclaimed, “you wrote Garvin Hastings that everything was taken care of, that—!”

“Certainly I did,” she said. “That little strumpet in the office was trying to twist him around her finger, trying to feather her nest financially, and I decided that I would fight fire with fire.”

Hamilton Burger said, “You knew that your husband was planning to marry his secretary?”

“Of course I did. That’s why he virtually booted me out. I was to go to Nevada and get a divorce.”

“And you filed suit for divorce?” Burger asked.

“Yes, I did,” she said defiantly.

“Where?”

“In Carson City.”

“Carson City?”

“That’s right. I had some friends there and I felt I could accomplish what I wanted to accomplish better in Carson City than anywhere else.”

“Then you wrote your husband that you had secured a divorce?”

“I did not. I wrote him that everything had been completed according to plan.”

Simley Beason said, “It’s all a lie. She sent him a copy of the divorce decree.”

Minerva Hastings smiled at him. “I sent him what purported to be a copy of a decree,” she said. “It wasn’t a certified copy.”

“It was a copy of a decree,” Beason insisted.

“Go look up the records,” she challenged, then whirled to Hamilton Burger. “Simley Beason here has always been sweet on Adelle and would love to give her a sympathetic shoulder, then marry her and step into control of the business.

“For your information, Mr. Simley Beason, I am going to be the one who controls the business. I am the widow. Adelle Hastings has no more status than any other mistress.”

“I think it’s only fair to advise everyone,” Huntley Banner said, “that I am filing a petition for the probate of a will and having Minerva Hastings appointed executrix of the estate.”

“A will!” Hamilton Burger said. “He left a will?”

“That’s right. It’s a will leaving everything to Minerva Hastings. Garvin Hastings had no relatives.”

Mason said, “Wasn’t there also a later will leaving the property to Adelle Hastings after he went through a marriage ceremony with her?”

“That ceremony wasn’t worth that!” Minerva said, snapping her fingers.

Mason kept his eyes on Banner. “I’m talking about a will,” he said.

Banner said, “If, of course, a later will should be found, that will be another question. However, I think that you will find any later will was torn up by Garvin Hastings when Adelle and he separated. I don’t care to discuss the Legal points now. I am simply trying to clarify the situation so that the authorities will know exactly where we stand, and with whom to deal.”

Mason said, “If your client perpetrated a fraud on Garvin Hastings, she won’t be in a position to capitalize on that fraud. Having told him that she had a divorce, she will be stopped to take advantage of her chicanery.”

“We’ll argue the legal points in court, Mr. Mason,” Banner said. “Right now I’m simply advising everyone that Minerva Hastings is going to be in control of the business and we will expect unconditional loyalty from all of the office employees.”

“With the exception of Simley Beason,” Minerva Hastings said acidly. “As far as you are concerned, Simley Beason, you can go and comfort Adelle as of now. Your services are discontinued. You are no longer employed here. You may clean out your desk and get your personal things out of here any time this afternoon. I will leave orders that you are not to be admitted to the premises tomorrow.”

Mason said, “You can’t fire him. You haven’t been appointed executrix of the estate.”

She turned to Connely Maynard. “You understand me, Connely?” she said. “I want Simley Beason out of here and I want him kept out. I want to see that he gets all his things out of his desk this afternoon and that he is out of the office and surrenders his key. Do you understand?”

Connely Maynard swallowed once. Then he said, “Yes, Mrs. Hastings.”

“Very well,” she said. “See that my orders are carried out, regardless of what any attorney tries to tell you.”

With that she turned and swept imperiously out of the office, followed by Huntley Banner.

Mason said, “As far as I’m concerned, and as far as my client is concerned, orders given by Minerva Hastings are absolutely worthless. You people can do what you want to. You can take whatever action you see fit as far as your relationships are concerned, but as far as my client is concerned and as far as I am concerned, Minerva Hastings has no status. Having resorted to fraud to lead Garvin Hastings to think she had secured a divorce, she is now estopped to falsify her own utterances.”

And Mason smiled at a dumbfounded Hamilton Burger, then stalked out of the office without once looking back.