The Case of the Horrified Heirs

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was ten o'clock in the morning. Mason paced the attorney's room at the jail impatiently.

A policewoman brought Virginia Baxter in, then discreetly withdrew out of earshot.

Mason said, «I understand you told the police everything, Virginia.»

She said, «They kept after me until way late-it must have been nearly midnight.»

«I know,» Mason said sympathetically. «They told you that they wanted to clear you so you could go home and go to bed; that if you'd only tell them the truth they'd investigate it and, if it checked out, they'd release you immediately; that, of course, if you refused to say anything that was your privilege but, in their own minds, it would show them that you were guilty and they'd stop trying to clear you. In that event they'd go home and go to bed and leave you in jail.»

Her eyes widened with surprise. «How did you know what they said?» she asked.

Mason merely smiled. «What did you tell them, Virginia?»

«I told them everything.»

Mason said, «Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, and Lieutenant Tragg told me they wanted me here this morning; that they were going to ask you some questions that they thought I should hear. Now, that means something pretty devastating. They evidently have some unpleasant surprises for you.

«It also means that you finally told them you wanted to get in touch with me and they then complied with the law by putting through a call to my office.»

«That's exactly what happened,» she said. «I told them everything last night because they said they'd investigate and, if I was telling the truth, I could go home and go to bed.

«Right after I'd told them everything, they simply got up and said, 'Well, Virginia, we'll investigate,' and started to walk out.

«I told them that they said I could go home and go to bed, and they said, Why, of course I could, but not tonight. It would be the next night-that it would take a day to investigate.»

«Then what?»

«I didn't sleep hardly a wink-being behind bars for the second time-Mr. Mason, what is the matter?»

«I don't know,» Mason told her, «but a great deal depends on whether you've told me the truth or whether you're lying.»

«Why should I lie to you?»

«I don't know,» Mason said, «but you've certainly been mixed up in some bizarre adventures, if one believes your story.»

«And suppose one doesn't believe it?»

«Well,» Mason said, «I'm afraid the district attorney and Lieutenant Tragg of the Homicide Squad are two people who don't believe you.»

«Would you expect them to?»

«Sometimes they believe people,» Mason said. «They're actually trying to do a job. They're trying to do justice but of course they don't like to have unsolved homicides.»

«What about the homicide?» she asked.

Mason said, «George Eagan, the chauffeur, was driving Lauretta Trent down the coast highway. They were coming south from Ventura.

«Mrs. Trent told the chauffeur that she'd tell him where to turn off, that they were going to a motel up in the mountains.

«They approached the turnoff leading up to the motel where you were waiting. So far the facts seem to indicate that Lauretta Trent was the one who telephoned you and asked you to wait for her there.»

«She did, Mr. Mason. She did. I told you-«

«You don't know,» Mason interrupted. «All you know is that a feminine voice told you that it was Lauretta Trent speaking and you were to go up there and wait at the motel.

«Anyway, just as the chauffeur was preparing to make the left turn, a car came up behind him fast. He swung to the right of the road so as to let the second car get by. However, that car swung over and crowded the Trent car right off the road and over the edge.

«There was an angry surf, and the chauffeur, George Eagan, knew there was deep water down there. He yelled to Mrs. Trent to jump and he flung the car door open and jumped himself. He apparently hit his head on a rock. In any event he was unconscious for some period of time.

«When he came to, there was no sign of the Trent automobile. The highway patrol was there. The highway police got a tow car, sent down divers and located the Trent car. They got grappling hooks on it, used a winch, brought it to the surface. There was no sign of Mrs. Trent, but the door on the left-hand, rear side of the car was unlocked and open. Evidently she had opened that door before the car went over the grade and rolled into the surf.

«They may never recover her body. There are treacherous currents there and a terrific undertow. Skin divers who went down there looking around had a hard time wrestling with the currents. A body could have been carried out to sea or swept down the coast. There's a terrific riptide at that point.»

«But why pick on me?»

«The chauffeur got a quick look at the rear end of the car that hit him. The description matches your car. A man who was two cars behind got a look at the last two figures on the license plate and they're the same as yours.»

«But I didn't leave the motel,» she said.

Mason said, «They picked up some glass at the place where the car had been crowded over the road. There were fragments of a glass headlight. Then the police went up to the motel where I ran into you with my car and examined the glass up there. They found a piece that had broken out of your headlight. The broken piece fits exactly into the lens on your headlight. Then the broken piece of glass that they found down where Lauretta Trent was crowded off the road also fits into the piece of glass that came out of that same headlight. By putting the whole thing together, they have patched up the glass fragments like a jigsaw puzzle and have virtually everything. There is only one small, triangular piece of glass that is missing.»

«But that chauffeur,» Virginia Baxter said, «why should they believe him when he did all those things?»

«That,» Mason said, «is something I don't understand myself. You told them about the chauffeur?»

«Of course.»

«About his wanting to bribe you to forge a copy of the will?»

«Yes.»

«And about the way you made the carbon copies and mailed them to yourself?»

«Yes. I told them everything, Mr. Mason. I realize now that I shouldn't have, but once I started talking-well, I was just… I was just scared stiff. I wanted so desperately to convince them and have them turn me loose.»

Abruptly, the door opened. District Attorney Hamilton Burger, accompanied by Lieutenant Tragg, entered the room.

«Good morning, Virginia,» Hamilton Burger said.

He turned to Perry Mason. «Hi, Perry. How's everything this morning?»

«How are you, Hamilton?» Mason said. «You going to turn my client loose?»

«I'm afraid not,» Burger said.

«Why not?»

«She told us quite a story about George Eagan, the chauffeur for Lauretta Trent,» Hamilton Burger said. «It was a nice story, but we don't believe it.

«Lauretta Trent's relatives told us quite a story about the chauffeur. It's a plausible story but it doesn't check out in some details. We're beginning to think that your client may be tied in with Lauretta Trent's relatives, trying to discredit Eagan and obscure the issues; incidentally, covering up attempts they have made at committing murder-a murder which was actually consummated by your client.»

«Why, that's absurd,» Virginia exclaimed. «I never met Lauretta Trent's relatives in my life.»

«Perhaps,» Mason said, «if you wouldn't be so hypnotized by an act put on by that chauffeur, you might have a clearer understanding of the situation.»

«Well, we'll see about that,» Burger said.

He stepped to the door, opened it and said to someone outside, «Come in.»

The man who entered was in his forties. He had a shock of coal-black hair, dark complexion, high cheekbones, and intense black eyes.

He shifted his eyes from Hamilton Burger to look directly at Virginia Baxter, then shook his head emphatically.

«Have you ever seen this young woman before?» Burger asked the man.

«No,» he said, shortly.

«There you are,» Burger said, turning to Virginia.

«Well, that's nothing,» she said. «I've never seen him before either. He looks in a general way like the Trent chauffeur, but he's not the man who called on me.»

«This,» Lieutenant Tragg announced dryly, «is George Eagan, the chauffeur for Lauretta Trent… That's all, George, you may go now.»

He turned to Mason and said, «George hit his head when he tumbled out of that automobile. He was unconscious for an undetermined length of time.»

«Now, just a minute,» Mason said. «Just a minute. Don't pull that stuff with me. If he's able to be out walking around and come here to identify, or fail to identify, my client, he can answer a question.»

«He doesn't have to,» Hamilton Burger said.

Mason ignored the district attorney's comment, said to the chauffeur, «You have a private automobile. It's an Olds and the license number is ODT062.»

Eagan looked at Mason with surprise. «That's my license number,» he said, «but it isn't an Olds, it's a Cadillac.»

«You were driving your automobile day before yesterday?» Mason asked.

Eagan looked at him with a puzzled expression on his face, then slowly shook his head. «I was chauffeuring Mrs. Trent. We drove up to Fresno.»

Burger said, «That's all, George. You don't need to answer any more questions.»

The chauffeur walked out.

Hamilton Burger turned to Mason and gave an expressive shrug of the shoulders, «There you are,» he said. «If any attempt has been made to frame anyone, it's an attempt to frame this chauffeur. You'd better check the story of your client a little bit yourself.

«We'll arraign her at eleven o'clock this morning if that meets with your convenience, and we'll have her preliminary hearing at any time you suggest. We want to give you ample opportunity to prepare.»

«That's very nice of you,» Mason said, «under the circumstances. We'll have a preliminary just as soon as the judge can get it on the calendar-tomorrow morning, if possible.»

Burger's smile was frosty. «You may catch us unprepared on some points, Perry, but you won't catch us with our wearing apparel disarranged. This is one case where you're on the wrong end. Your client is a shrewd, scheming opportunist.

«I don't know yet who she's teamed up with. I don't know who administered the poison to Lauretta Trent, but I do know that it was your client's car that crowded her off the road, and your client has told enough lies to make her exceedingly vulnerable.

«At least we'll get her bound over while we're looking for the other conspirator.

«And now, we'll leave you alone with your client.»

Burger nodded to Lieutenant Tragg, and the pair walked out, closing the door behind them.

Mason turned to Virginia Baxter.

She said, «There's been a horrible mistake somewhere, Mr. Mason. That man has the general physical characteristics of the chauffeur-I mean, the man I talked with, the one who gave me the name of Menard… Of course, you were the one who told me he was Lauretta Trent's chauffeur.»

«That,» Mason said, «was on the strength of the physical description plus the license number of the automobile he was driving. You're sure it was an Oldsmobile?»

«Yes. It wasn't a new Olds but I certainly thought that's what it was… Of course, I could have made a mistake in the license number; that is, I could have been wrong on the last or something like that, but the first figure was a zero.»

Mason shook his head, «No, Virginia, that would be too much of a coincidence. But you could have been victimized by someone who inveigled you into doing his dirty work for him. Suppose you try telling me the truth for a change.»

«But I have told you the truth.»

«_I'll_ tell you something,» Mason said. «If you insist on telling that story, you're going to be bound over for trial on a charge of murder; and if someone is using you as a cat'spaw and you don't give me an opportunity to get you into the clear by telling me exactly what happened, you're in very, very serious trouble.»

She shook her head.

«Well?» Mason asked.

She hesitated a moment.

«I've told you the truth,» she said at length.

Mason said, «If it's the truth, someone with a diabolically clever mind has carefully inveigled you into a trap.»

«It's… it's the truth,» she said.

Mason said, «I'm your attorney. If you nsist that a story is the truth, no matter how weird or bizarre it sounds, I have to believe you and not show the slightest doubt when we get to court.»

«But you don't really believe me?» she asked.

Mason regarded her thoughtfully. «If you were on a jury and a defendant told a story like that, would you believe her?»

Virginia Baxter started to cry.

«Would you?» Mason asked.

«No,» she sobbed, «it sounds too… too-just too much of a series of improbable things.»

«Exactly,» Mason said. «Now then, you have one defense and only one defense. Either tell me the absolute truth and let me take it from there, or stay with this improbable story. If you do that, I'm going to have to adopt the position that some shrewd, diabolically clever individual is deliberately framing you for murder. And the way events have been taking place, he's very apt indeed to have you convicted.»

She looked at him with tearstained eyes.

«Of course, you realize my predicament,» Mason said. «Once I adopt the position that you're being framed, if even the slightest part of your story turns out to be false, you'll be swept along into the penitentiary on a tide of adverse public opinion. The slightest falsehood will completely ruin your chances.»

She nodded. «I can see that.»

«Now then,» Mason said, «in view of that situation and in view of that statement, do you want to change your story?»

«I can't change it,» she said.

«You mean because you're stuck with it?» Mason asked.

«I just can't change it, Mr. Mason, because it's the truth. That's all.»

«All right,» Mason told her, «I'll take it from there and do the best I can with it. Sit tight.»

The lawyer walked out.