The Case of the Lonely Heiress

Chapter 20

As court reconvened, Judge Osborn said, “Are you ready to proceed with the case of People versus Marlow, gentlemen?”

“Ready for the Defense,” Mason said.

“Ready for the Prosecution,” Hanover announced. “It gives me pleasure to inform the Court that the additional witnesses whom I wanted to secure are now in court, so that I can authenticate the copy of that letter.

“I believe that Lieutenant Tragg was on the stand, but if it is agreeable to the Court, I would like now to withdraw Lieutenant Tragg once more so that I can call Ralph Endicott.”

“No objection,” Mason said. “I want it understood, however, that Lieutenant Tragg will be returned to the stand because I wish to cross-examine him on some of the matters concerning which he has already testified.”

“You will have ample opportunity to cross-examine the witness,” Judge Osborn said.

“I will now call Ralph Endicott to the stand,” Hanover announced.

Ralph Endicott nodded somewhat acidly to Mason, took the witness stand and answered preliminary questions, stating that he was the brother of George P. Endicott, deceased, that he had been acquainted with Rose Keeling during her lifetime.

“Now, on the sixteenth of this month,” Hanover said suavely, “did you receive any communication in the United States mail purporting to be in the handwriting of Rose Keeling, or to come from her?”

“I did, yes.”

“What was that?”

“I received through the mail a carbon copy of a letter which was in her handwriting.”

“To whom was that letter addressed?”

“To Marilyn Marlow.”

“The defendant in this case?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll show you what purports to be a carbon copy of that letter addressed to Marilyn Marlow and ask you whether you have ever seen that letter before.”

“I have. Yes, sir. That was delivered to me in an envelope which came through the United States mails and was received by me on the sixteenth of this month.”

“And that letter is in the handwriting of the decedent, Rose Keeling?”

“Yes, sir, it is. I have seen her handwriting. I’ve studied her signature very carefully. Her signature is appended to the purported will of my dead brother, as a witness.”

“And is that the only way you know that letter is in the handwriting of Rose Keeling?”

“No, sir. I discussed the matter with Rose Keeling. She told me that letter was in her handwriting.”

“Cross-examine,” Hanover said to Perry Mason.

“When did she tell you that the letter was written by her?” Mason asked.

“That was on the following day, on the seventeenth.”

“The day she was killed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And where did this conversation take place?”

“In her flat, in the living room.”

“And what time was it?”

“Around eight o’clock in the morning.”

“And how did you happen to be there at that hour?”

“She telephoned me and asked me to come there.”

“You had a conversation with her at that time?”

“I did. Yes, sir.”

“And what did she tell you during that conversation?”

“Oh, Your Honor,” Hanover said, “if the Court please, this is going far afield. The only questions I have asked this witness pertain to the letter. Now then, if Counsel goes on a fishing expedition, inquiring about everything they talked about... well, Your Honor, I object on the ground that it’s not proper cross-examination.”

Mason said, “I believe, Your Honor, it is an elemental rule of evidence that when Counsel inquires concerning a conversation on direct examination, on cross-examination opposing counsel has the right to bring out the entire conversation.”

“I didn’t inquire about this conversation,” Hanover said.

Mason smiled and said, “You asked him how he knew it was her handwriting and he said he was familiar with her handwriting, and, moreover, she had acknowledged that it was her handwriting. I then asked him about the conversation, and it appears that the acknowledgment took place in her flat. I am now asking for the entire conversation.”

“The objection is overruled,” Judge Osborn said.

“Well,” Endicott said, “she called me up and asked me to come up there. She wanted to know if I’d received the carbon copy of the letter she’d sent Marilyn Marlow.”

“That was over the telephone?”

“Yes.”

“So you went to her apartment, or flat, and had a conversation with her?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said that Eleanore Marlow had promised her money to witness a false and fraudulent will, that she had been given one thousand dollars on account, that she knew the will was improperly obtained, that my brother had not known the terms of the will, and she doubted very much whether he had actually signed it; that she had not been in the room when the instrument was executed. Under those circumstances, she felt the thousand dollars which had been received by her from Eleanore Marlow, and which she knew was money raised from the sale of jewelry that also had been fraudulently obtained, should be refunded to me. Therefore, she gave me a check for a thousand dollars to ease her conscience.”

“That was the conversation you had in her flat?”

“That’s right. Yes, sir.”

“On the morning of the seventeenth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And at that time she gave you a check, which also carries the signature of Rose Keeling, does it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when you said that in passing upon the genuineness of the signature of Rose Keeling to this letter you knew that it was her handwriting, I presume you’re being guided in part by a comparison of the signature which you had seen on that check?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how do you know that was genuine?"

“Because I saw her sign it, for one thing, and because the bank accepted it and okayed it, for another.”

“You have that check with you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want it marked for identification,” Mason said. “I want to take a look at it.”

“Oh, if the Court please,” Hanover said, “that certainly is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.”

“It’s one of the documents relied upon by the witness in stating that this letter was signed by the decedent,” Mason said.

“But she told him with her own mouth that she had written that letter,” Hanover said.

“That’s what this witness states,” Mason said. “Unfortunately, Rose Keeling is not here to confirm or deny that testimony. This witness has now stated, if the Court please, that in testifying that a certain signature is genuine, he relied upon a comparison with the signature upon another document which he has in his possession. Certainly under the circumstances, on cross-examination, I’m entitled to inspect that document.”

“I guess that’s right,” Hanover said with poor grace. “If you want to keep this thing running indefinitely, I suppose you have the right to prolong it by one excuse or another. Show him the check, Mr. Endicott.”

Ralph Endicott opened his purse, took out the certified check he had previously shown Mason, said, “Be careful with this check. I don’t want anything to happen to it. It’s evidence.”

“Indeed it is!” Mason said. “We’ll have the clerk stamp it for identification right now.”

The clerk made a stamp of identification on the check.

“What time did you leave Rose Keeling’s flat?”

“I’ve already gone into that with you and Lieutenant Tragg. I left there around eight-thirty. I can account for every minute of my whereabouts during the day.”

Mason said, “That’s all for the moment. I may want to ask you a question or two later on. Your Honor, I would like to have this check photographed.”

“Very well,” Judge Osborn said.

“Well, I’m going to stay right here until I get that check back,” Endicott declared truculently. “I don’t mind you taking a photograph of it, but I want it back.”

“We can have a photostat made at the first recess of the court,” the clerk said. “I can make a photostat within ten minutes.”

“Very well. I think Mr. Endicott wants to remain in court anyway,” the judge said, smiling at Endicott.

“It’s all right. I’ll stay right here,” Endicott said, and marched back to seat himself with his brother and sister in the rear of the courtroom.

“Lieutenant Tragg, back on the stand,” Hanover said.

Tragg resumed the stand.

“Now then, Lieutenant, I show you this carbon copy of a letter to Marilyn Marlow and ask you where you secured that letter.”

“Mr. Ralph Endicott gave it to me.”

“What did you do with it after that?”

“I showed it to the defendant.”

“And what did she say with reference to that letter?”

“She admitted that she had received the original in the mail and had destroyed it.”

“You may cross-examine,” Hanover said.

Mason said, “Lieutenant Tragg, you stated in effect that you had asked the defendant repeatedly whether or not she had placed the tennis things as shown in that photograph near the closet door for the purpose of bolstering her story, but that she had refused to admit it.”

“That’s right.”

“Isn’t that rather a prejudicial way of presenting a fact in the case, Lieutenant?”

“How do you mean?”

“In other words, you didn’t have one scintilla of evidence that would indicate that she had placed those tennis things near the door, did you?”

“Well, I felt pretty certain she had. If Rose Keeling had written her this letter the day before, and was packing her things to get out of town on the seventeenth, and taking a bath, just ready to travel, she certainly didn’t intend to go out and play tennis.”

“But, Lieutenant, how do you know she was packing her things?”

“Because she was packing two suitcases. One of them was fully packed and the other was about half packed.”

“You mean the other one was half unpacked, don’t you?”

“I mean it was packed! She was packing.”

“How do you know she wasn’t unpacking?”

“How do I know anything?” Lieutenant Tragg said. “The evidence was there. You could see it. The woman was packing.”

“Lieutenant, I show you this photograph of the bedroom and call your attention to a pile of clothes which were folded and placed on the bureau.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You saw those clothes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What were they?”

“Clothes that she’d been folding and getting ready to put in the suitcase.”

“Did you examine that pile of clothes?” Mason asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“You didn’t disturb it but you looked through it?”

“I took a peek here and there to see what was in there.”

“And what was in there?”

“Some underwear, a nightgown, some handkerchiefs, stockings, various things.”

“And they were folded to various dimensions, Lieutenant, but the external dimensions of the entire pile were just as shown here in the photograph?”

“That’s right. Some of the things were small, like handkerchiefs and underwear, but the outside dimensions of the whole pile just fitted the suitcase.”

“And, therefore, you assumed that she was getting ready to put them in the suitcase.”

“That’s right. She’d folded them so they’d just fit in the suitcase.”

“Do you think it is possible for a person to do that?”

“Of course it’s possible. The evidence is right there.”

“Isn’t the evidence equally amenable to the interpretation that the things had been packed in the suitcase and then were lifted out of the suitcase and placed on the bureau?”

“No.”

“After all,” Hanover said to the judge, “this is calling for a conclusion from the witness.”

“He’s qualified himself as an expert,” Mason said, “by swearing on his oath that the decedent was packing at the time of her death. I want to prove to him that he’s wrong.”

“Go ahead and try to prove it!” Hanover challenged.

Mason smilingly pushed back his chair, got to his feet, said, “Please give me that package, Della.”

Della Street handed him a large shopping bag.

Mason took a suitcase from beneath the counsel table, walked over to Lieutenant Tragg, said, “Lieutenant Tragg, you say it’s possible for a person to fold garments so they’ll fit into a suitcase without actually fitting them into the suitcase at the time they’re folded. Here are some feminine undergarments and other wearing apparel. Now, go ahead and fold those so they will exactly fit into this suitcase. Do it without putting them into the suitcase itself.”

Lieutenant Tragg said, “That’s easy,” and dove into the bag of garments, emerging with a pair of silk panties, much to his own embarrassment and the amusement of the courtroom.

“After all this isn’t a fair test,” Hanover objected.

“Why isn’t it a fair test?” Mason asked. “The Lieutenant says it can be done. Let’s see him do it.”

“It’s a cinch,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “Just give me a table or something to pile these on, and I’ll show Mr. Mason how it’s done.”

He cocked an eye at the suitcase, then spread the panties on the table. He next pulled a blouse from the shopping bag.

“Of course,” Tragg said, “I haven’t had too much experience in getting these things folded so they don’t wrinkle.”

“I understand,” Mason said. “You’re not supposed to be making a job of expert packing such as a woman would do. You’re simply showing the Court how it’s possible to put these clothes in a pile so that the external dimensions of the pile will exactly fit the suitcase.”

Lieutenant Tragg started folding the blouse, then observed the edges of the fold with a certain amount of disquiet. However, he bravely delved into the shopping bag, brought out more garments and arranged them in the form of a rough square.

“I think this will about do it,” he said.

Mason looked at the pile of garments and lowered them into the suitcase. “You have fully an inch and a half clearance here, Lieutenant.”

“Well, I’ll try it over again and make it bigger,” Tragg said impatiently.

He rearranged the garments.

Once more Mason fitted them and said, “And this is three-quarters of an inch too wide. I’ll have to bend up the edges of this pile in order to get it into the suitcase.”

“Well, look here,” Lieutenant Tragg said, “let me just put one garment down there so I can get the dimensions of the suitcase and then I’ll...”

“But you can’t do it that way,” Mason said, “because the pile must contain several garments. There are only a few garments here that would be big enough to give you an exact pattern.”

“Well, let me put in two or three and then I’ll...”

“But the minute you do that,” Mason said, "you’re unpacking the suitcase, Lieutenant.”

Tragg became awkwardly embarrassed as the extent of his dilemma suddenly dawned on him.

“So,” Mason said, “it would now appear that these garments which you saw on the bureau had been folded as they were put into the suitcase and then removed and placed on the bureau. Isn’t that right?”

“Well, I don’t know that they just exactly fitted into the suitcase.”

“But you said they did.”

“Well, it looked to me as though they did.”

“And the edges were exactly even and uniform? In the form of a rectangle?”

“On three sides, yes.”

Mason said, “Try and fold that pile of garments so the edges are in the form of an exact rectangle without having some box or a suitcase to act as a pattern.”

Tragg said wearily, “All right, you win. She was unpacking. That is, she’d taken some garments out of the suitcase and put them on top of the bureau.”

“Exactly,” Mason said. “So you were mistaken when you said she was packing at the time she was killed. What you meant was that she was unpacking. Is that right?”

“I still don’t think she was unpacking,” Tragg said.

“But you can’t explain the evidence any other way?”

“All right. I withdraw what I said about her packing at the time of her death.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Mason said. “So it now appears that the defendant’s story is not so inherently improbable. Miss Keeling could have suggested that they play tennis.”

“Well, she wouldn’t have taken a bath just before going to play tennis.”

“But in the bathroom, in the soiled clothes hamper, you found a playsuit that was torn and on which there were spots of ink, did you not?”

“That’s right.”

“And if some person had entered the flat after Miss Keeling had dressed herself in a playsuit for the purpose of going to the tennis court, had thrown ink on her, and had also torn that suit, and Miss Keeling had located herself in the bathroom and waited there until her assailant had departed, it then would have been only reasonable to expect that she would have divested herself of the torn playsuit and taken a bath to wash off any stains of ink that were on her skin. Isn’t that right?”

“Oh, sure,” Tragg said sarcastically, “go ahead. You can make an explanation that will fit anything, provided, of course, you concede those impossibilities. Go ahead and prove that some person called on her and threw ink on her.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “I think I will, Lieutenant. That, I believe, is all.”

“That’s all, Lieutenant,” Hanover said.

Judge Osborn said, “At this time, in view of the fact that Mr. Endicott wishes to have his check back, I think that it will be in order for the Court to take a twenty-minute recess while the clerk makes a photostat of that check. The photostat can then be received in evidence as an exemplar of the handwriting of the decedent.”

Judge Osborn retired to his chambers. The newspaper reporters, gleefully sensing a dramatic picture which would attract the interest of their readers, thronged around the embarrassed Lieutenant Tragg, snapping a series of flashlight photographs showing the police officer pulling feminine lingerie from the shopping bag and trying to assemble it on the table in the form of a rectangle.

Mason caught the eye of Paul Drake as the tall detective arose from the spectator’s seat where he had been taking in the proceedings.

Drake came forward, grinning. “You’ve sure got the boys on the run, Perry,” he said.

Mason’s features showed the extreme nervous tension under which he was laboring.

“Quick, Paul,” he said in a low voice, “I want you to pull a job for me."

“What is it?”

Mason said, “We’ve got to consider the plain simple facts in this case. Rose Keeling had packed up to go somewhere. She suddenly started to unpack for no apparent reason. She gave Ralph Endicott a check for a thousand dollars. After having written Marilyn Marlow that Marilyn’s mother was a crook and that the will was invalid, she suddenly became friendly and wanted to play tennis with Marilyn. Does that give you any ideas?”

“What do you mean?” Drake asked.

“There’s only one logical explanation. Paul, there’s no question but what Ralph Endicott has an iron-clad alibi?”

“No question. I’ve checked it and double-checked it.”

“All right,” Mason said, “then there’s only one other explanation. I want you to go and stand at the door of the courtroom and continue to stand there.”

“Why?” Drake asked.

“Just stand there,” Mason said, “that’s all. You don’t need to do it until court reconvenes, but the minute Judge Osborn gets on the bench, I want you to go and take up a position just outside the door of this courtroom, where you can hear what’s going on. And I want you to stand there.”

“That’s all?”

“No. One more thing. You’ve got some men here to help you?”

“A couple of my best boys.”

“All right. I want you to give one of them this subpoena. It calls for the attendance of the cashier of the bank where Rose Keeling had her account and on which this check is drawn. The cashier is the one who certified that check and accepted Rose Keeling’s signature on it. I want that man brought here and I want the records of Rose Keeling’s account for the last sixty days brought along with him. Get one of your men in a cab, rush him to the bank, grab the cashier and bring him up here pronto. Tell him it’s a forthwith subpoena and he has to appear at once.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“That,” Mason said, “is all. But be sure that when court reconvenes you’re standing in the door of the courtroom.”