The Case of the Mischievous Doll

Chapter Eleven

Perry Mason, seated in the consulting room in the jail building, looked across at Minerva Minden and said, “Minerva, before you say a word to me, I want to tell you that Henrietta Hull called on me this morning. She gave me a check for twenty thousand dollars as a retainer to represent you. I told her that I would defend you on the charge of murdering Marvin Billings; that I couldn’t as yet tell whether I would defend you on the charge of murdering Dorrie Ambler.”

“As I understand it,” she said, “the Billings murder is the one on which I am being held.”

“Has a formal complaint been signed?”

“I believe they’re intending to have an indictment by the grand jury and for some reason they want to have the trial itself take place just as soon as possible — and that suits me.”

“Ordinarily,” Mason said, “we spar for time in a criminal case and try to see what develops.”

“This isn’t an ordinary case,” she said.

“I’m satisfied it isn’t,” Mason told her. “I’m beginning to have a glimmering of what I think happened.” She shook her head and said, “I don’t think you know enough of the facts to reach any conclusion.”

“Perhaps I don’t,” Mason said. “I am going to ask you one question. Did you murder Marvin Billings?”

“No.”

“At the moment that’s all I want to know,” Mason said.

“All right,” she told him. “Now I have a confession to make to you. I—”

“Is this to confess a crime?” Mason interposed.

“Yes, but it’s—”

Mason held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear any confession.”

“This isn’t what you think it is. It doesn’t relate to—”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” Mason interrupted.

She said, “Because this is something that would never have occurred to you. It’s about another matter entirely. It doesn’t have to do with this murder, it has to do with—”

Mason said, “Hold it, Minerva. I want to explain my position to you. You’ve told me that you’re innocent of the murder on which you’re going to be tried. If you have lied to me, that is your hard luck, because it’s going to put me in a position where I’ll be acting on a false assumption.

“Now then, any confession which you may want to make is entirely different.

“Any communication made by a client to an attorney is a privileged communication, but if you tell me that you have committed some particular crime, particularly if it’s a different crime from the one you’re charged with, the situation becomes different. I am your attorney but I am also a citizen. I can advise you in connection with your legal rights, but if I know that you have committed a serious crime and then try to advise you what to do to avoid being apprehended for that crime, I put myself in the position of being an accessory.

“I don’t want to get put in that position.”

She thought that over for a few seconds, then said, “I see.”

“Now,” Mason went on, “you must realize that they have a lot against you — some perfectly devastating evidence that clinches the case in their minds. Otherwise they would never have dared to proceed in this manner. They would have gone to your home and very courteously asked you questions. Then they would have checked on your answers, asked you more questions and eventually would have instituted proceedings only after they had convinced themselves of your guilt.

“The manner in which they’re acting at the present time indicates that they have some deadly bit of evidence which they are counting on to bring about a conviction, and which probably is going to take you by surprise — or at least they think it’s going to take you by surprise.”

“From their questions,” she said, “I gathered that this man, Dunleavey Jasper, had told them quite a story.”

“Involving you?”

“Yes.”

“What dealings have you had with Dunleavey Jasper?”

“None.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

“I think I have.”

“When?”

“Two detectives brought a man into the office when I was being interrogated by the prosecutor. The man looked at me, looked at the prosecutor, nodded, and then they took him out.”

Mason thought that over for a few seconds, suddenly got up, said, “All right, Miss Minden, I’m going to represent you. But I just want to point out that some of the things you have been doing are not going to be conducive to securing acquittal.

“You’ve more or less deliberately played up to the press in their characterization of you as the madcap heiress of Montrose.

“In addition to the things which you have done, and which have been documented, there’s a lot of whispering about nude swimming parties and things of that sort.”

“All right,” she said, “what of it? It’s my body, I like it and it’s beautiful. I’m not dumb enough to think that it isn’t.

“People go to nudist camps and everybody takes those camps for granted and leaves nudists alone, but if a person is reasonably broadminded and objects to the—”

“You don’t need to argue with me,” Mason said, smiling, “but I’m simply telling you that many a person has violated the moral code and then been unfortunate enough to be charged with murder. Jurors of a certain type love to throw the book at someone who has violated their particular moral code.

“Many an unfortunate individual has been convicted of murder on evidence that proved he or she was guilty of adultery.”

“All right,” she said, “in the eyes of many people I’m a scarlet woman. Is that going to keep you from taking my case?”

“No.”

“Is it going to interfere with my chances of an acquittal?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I wondered if you’d be frank or whether you’d engage in a lot of double talk. You don’t need to tell me anything about the hatchet-faced frustrated biddies who love to sit in judgment on their fellow women.”

“What I was trying to point out,” Mason said, “was that when a young woman tries to emancipate herself from the conventions and goes out of her way to build up a reputation for being a madcap heiress, it sometimes proves embarrassing.”

“If she gets charged with murder,” Minerva said.

“And you’re charged with murder,” Mason pointed out.

“Thank you for the lecture,” she said. “I’ll try and be a good girl after I get out. At least I’ll keep my name out of the papers.”

Mason said, “Apparently you have no realization of what’s going to happen. You’re good copy. The fact that you’re charged with murder is going to sell papers, and when something happens that sells papers it gets played up big.”

“I take it you mean really big,” she said.

“I mean really big,” Mason told her. “That brings up the picture I want to present to the public — a rather demure but highly active young woman who is bighearted, acts on impulse, and is sometimes misunderstood; but at heart you’re rather demure.”

“That’s the face you want me to present to the public?”

“Yes.”

“To hell with it,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not going to try to change my personality just to beat a murder rap. That’s up to you, Mr. Perry Mason. I’m not demure and I’m not going to put on that mask for public consumption in the press.”

Mason sighed as he picked up his briefcase and started for the door. “I was afraid you’d have that attitude,” he said.

“I’ve got it,” she told him. “And now you know.”