Chapter Fourteen

It was shortly before noon when Lieutenant Tragg, all smiles, entered Perry Mason’s private office, immediately on the heels of Gertie’s frenzied ringing of the telephone.

“Hello, Perry. Hello, Della,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “Nice morning this morning. How are you folks feeling?”

“Fine,” Mason said. “Is there any reason you can’t let Gertie announce you? Must you always come busting into my private office, Lieutenant?”

“Always,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “The taxpayers take a dim view of a police officer waiting in a lawyer’s outer office while the lawyer composes his thoughts or perhaps gets rid of a client out of the side door — so we just come busting on in, as you call it.”

Tragg’s grin was friendly and affable.

“Well,” Mason said, “I don’t have any clients to be spirited out of the side door.”

“That’s right, you don’t,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “We’re going to pick up your client, Ellen Adair, and I’m afraid, Perry, we’re going to have to charge her with murder.

“Now she’ll want to have her lawyer present, and I thought it might be nice if you just came along with me... make it all cozy like a little family party... and it might save us time.”

“Where are you going to pick her up?” Mason asked.

“At the department store,” Tragg said. “That’s where she works. We hate to humiliate her, but, after all, Perry, you know the law is the law.”

“I hope you have evidence,” Mason said.

“Evidence?” Tragg said. “Why, of course, we have evidence. We wouldn’t pick her up without evidence — you know that, Perry — particularly a woman with a responsible position of this sort.”

Mason said to Della Street, “You run this store while I’m gone, Della. I might just as well accommodate the lieutenant.”

“Well, that’s mighty nice of you, Perry,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “It’s always so inconvenient to have to pick up someone, then have to call a busy lawyer and have him say he can’t get there for an hour or an hour and a half or two hours or whatever time limit he fixes so that his client can have an opportunity to think up a good story.”

“This time,” Mason said, “I’m going to be frank with you. Lieutenant.”

“Please do,” Tragg said.

“I’m going to advise Ellen Adair to say absolutely nothing. She’ll tell her story for the first time on the witness stand, if she is prosecuted.”

“Tut, tut, tut,” Lieutenant Tragg said; “now that’s not a smart thing to do, Perry.”

“It may not be smart, but I think it’s fair to handle it that way.”

“Well, of course, you do what you see fit,” Tragg said, “but we’re going to ask questions, and some of them she’d better have the answers for.”

“She may have the answers, but that’s no sign she’s going to give them,” Mason said. “I’m taking the sole responsibility of telling her not to answer questions.”

“Well, it’s your funeral,” Tragg said. Then he added with a chuckle, “Or is it?”

“Let’s hope it’s no one’s funeral,” Mason said. “Let’s go.”

Tragg said, “I have a squad car downstairs. We’ll be taking your client right to Headquarters. You’d like to ride with us?”

“I’ll ride with you,” Mason said.

The lawyer looked significantly at Della Street and nodded.

“Oh, that’s all right,” Tragg said, beaming; “go right ahead, Della, and pick up the telephone, call French, Coleman and Swazey, and tell her that we’re on our way out there. After all. Perry Mason, as an attorney, has to give some service to his clients. We’ll give her that much preparation.

“Come on, Perry.”

The two men left the office building. Tragg, in a rare good humor, seated himself in the front seat beside the driver, put Mason in the back seat, and said, “We’ll put your client in there, too, when we pick her up, Perry. We won’t try to do any talking until we get to Headquarters.”

Tragg turned to the driver. “French, Coleman and Swazey,” he said; “the executive offices.”

The police car threaded its way through the traffic with skillful handling, then, after a short run, parked in front of a fireplug at the big department store.

“Just wait here,” Lieutenant Tragg instructed the driver. “Want to come along, Mason?”

“Certainly,” Mason said; “that’s why I’m here.”

“It is for a fact,” Tragg said.

They went to the executive offices.

Tragg marched into the buyer’s office, pushed his way past a startled secretary, entered the private office, and said to Ellen Adair, “I guess you know why we’re here, Miss Adair.”

Mason said, “Ellen, you are going to be arrested for murder. I instruct you as your attorney to say nothing, to answer no questions.”

“Well, now, just a minute, just a minute,” Lieutenant Tragg said; “there’s a formality first. You don’t realize how our activities are all being subjected to formula these days.

“Now, Miss Adair, it’s my unpleasant duty to tell you that I am arresting you on suspicion of murder — the murder of Agnes Burlington. I want to warn you that you don’t have to answer any questions, that you don’t have to make any statements, that if you do make any statements they may be used against you. I want you to know that you are entitled to counsel at all times, and, for your information, Mr. Perry Mason, who is your attorney, was picked up by us and was advised that we we’re going to put you under arrest. He will be with you whenever you are interrogated.

“Now, then, I’m going to have to ask you to come to Headquarters and to advise you that you are under arrest.”

Ellen said, “I told you...”

“Hold it,” Mason interrupted, “hold it, Ellen. We’re not saying anything.”

“But I told him...”

“If you’ve already told him, he’ll remember what you said,” Mason warned, “but right now he’d like to get you to say something else.”

“Is there any reason why I can’t assert my innocence?” she flared.

“Every reason in the world,” Mason said. “He’ll get you talking on the little things, and the next thing you know you’ll be talking on the big things.”

“What big things, Counselor?” Tragg asked.

Mason grinned and said, “Some of the big things you’ve been uncovering.”

“Well, now, of course I don’t know what you mean by a big thing,” Tragg said, “but, for instance, we can prove that Ellen Adair’s car was in the driveway there at the Burlington duplex after the ground had become soft: a detective’s delight, Mason — it really is. I was very much surprised. We don’t ordinarily find anything that perfect.”

“Congratulations,” Mason said.

“Thank you, thank you very much, Perry. You see, she drove the car in and found the ground was soft and decided to back out, and she’s a good driver. Many drivers would have warped the front wheels a little bit, and that would have made them shovel the mud. You know how it is when the front wheels get out of line with the car in soft soil or sand.”

Mason nodded.

“But this woman,” Tragg said, “went out without turning the steering wheel. She just went in, found the ground was soft, and backed out, slowly and easily, without spinning the rear wheels; and the front wheels were just enough on a slant so that we got perfect impressions of the front wheels as well as the tires on the hind wheels. Of course, after a while the front wheels got into the groove and obliterated the tracks of the hind Wheels, but we got enough to make a perfect moulage. And all four wheels left perfect tracks. The ground was just the right consistency.”

“Indeed,” Mason said; “I thought when I looked at the ground that it was a little too soft and mushy to leave good impressions.”

“Well, that, of course, was later,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “We figure that the Adair car was parked in the driveway — or perhaps I should say driven into the driveway — and then backed out at just about the time of death.”

“When do you place the time of death?” Mason asked.

“That’s very tricky,” Lieutenant Tragg said, “and you’ll probably ask a lot of questions on cross-examination of the autopsy surgeons. But the best they can do with it is about twenty-four to thirty-hours before the body was discovered — rigor mortis had already appeared and left and there was, of course, well-settled postmortem lividity. If we knew when she had ingested the last meal it would help a lot, but evidently it was stuff she had cooked up herself there in the duplex and then she had washed the dishes, and so all we can tell is she was killed within about two hours of the time she ingested the food, but we don’t know exactly when that was.”

“The nature of the food tell you anything?” Mason asked.

“Well, well, well,” Tragg said, “this is the complete reversal of the usual order. In place of asking questions of a suspect, the suspect and her attorney are now asking questions of the peace officers. In view of the Supreme Court decisions. Mason, you’d better warn me that anything I say may be used against me.”

“Well,” Mason said, “if you’re interested in apprehending the real murderer, you should be willing to discuss the facts that have been uncovered to date.”

“Exactly,” Tragg said; “and if you’re interested in the administration of justice and in uncovering what you are pleased to describe as the real murderer, perhaps you’d answer a few questions yourself.

“Now, for instance, there’s this question of the package at the post office: an envelope mailed to Ellen Adair at General Delivery.

“Ah-hah, I see that jolts you a little. Miss Adair, didn’t think the police were that thorough, did you?”

“A letter?” Mason asked.

“Well,” Tragg said, “we think it’s more in the nature of a notebook. In fact, it’s about the size of a diary, Mason.

“Now, of course, we haven’t opened it yet, because, while we have a search warrant and all of that, there are formalities to be gone through with first when an article has been consigned to the United States mails. You know, the government is a little touchy about the mail service, but we’ve seen the exterior of the package and it was dropped in a mailbox, addressed to Ellen Adair at General Delivery, and the handwriting of the address on the envelope is that of Miss Adair.

“Now we’ll have that envelope opened within an hour or so, and that could bring about quite a change in the situation, particularly if the contents should be a diary kept by Agnes Burlington.

“Intimate acquaintances of Agnes Burlington insist that there was a diary which was kept in a top right-hand drawer of a dresser. We weren’t able to uncover a single sign of a diary when we went through the place after the murder, and if it should appear that the package at the post office, addressed by Miss Adair to herself, contains this missing diary — well, you can see what the situation would be, Mason.

“Would you care to make any statement about that package at the post office, Miss Adair?”

“She would not,” Mason interposed firmly.

“She can at least say whether it’s something she mailed to herself and when she put it in the post office,” Tragg said, “because we have the envelope with the handwritten address and all we’d like to know is why she mailed it to herself at General Delivery. Within an hour we’ll know the contents of the envelope.”

Ellen Adair gave Mason a look which was sick with apprehension.

Mason said, “Miss Adair is making no statement whatever.”

“That looks a little bad from die standpoint of public relations, doesn’t it?” Lieutenant Tragg asked.

“We’re not trying this case in a court of public relations,” Mason said. “We’re trying it in a court of justice, and I’m not going to let it be tried in the newspapers.”

“Well, we seem to be getting nowhere fast,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

Mason said, “Let’s put the cards on the table, Lieutenant. There are certain reasons why Miss Adair cannot answer questions. There are certain things in connection with her background which have to be kept undisclosed. If she once starts answering questions, she has to disclose matters which are personal and private. Therefore, she is not answering any questions, and that means she is not going to say one word.”

“Well, I can appreciate your position,” Tragg said. “It’s putting the job right on our shoulders of developing the whole case, but I guess that’s the way you want it. But these private matters you are talking about certainly can’t relate to a potential will contest which is going to come up in the little town of Cloverville, Perry.”

“Why not?” Mason asked.

“Why,” Tragg said, “that information is in the hands of the police and, I’m afraid, Perry, in the hands of the press. Of course, I don’t want to say anything which would reflect in any way upon your client’s character, but, after all, evidence is evidence and there’s a witness, a Maxine Edfield, whom I think you know, who has given the police some very valuable information relating to motivation and the possibility that Miss Adair here is going to claim that she had a son by Harmon Haslett, who recently left a two-million-dollar estate. Those are all things that enter into the case by way of motivation, and I am wondering if perhaps, since those matters are now going to be public property. Miss Adair would care to comment on them.”

“Miss Adair would not care to comment on anything,” Mason said.

“Perhaps as her attorney you would care to make some comment?”

“As her attorney I would not care to make any comment.”

Tragg shrugged his shoulders. “Well, we seem to have run up against a wall of silence. Of course, you both understand that we are interested in doing justice. We don’t want to subject any person to a lot of publicity and a lot of annoyance unless there’s some reason for it.

“Now, if Miss Adair could clear up these matters which are bothering the police by simply telling the truth, we’d be only too glad to listen to her explanation, carefully investigate any facts she may give, and wipe the slate clean in the event our investigation warrants.”

“You know and I know,” Mason said, “that you wouldn’t have gone this far unless you had decided to prosecute her for the murder of Agnes Burlington. You know that all this high-sounding malarkey about the administration of justice is simply bait to get the defendant to talk, and it’s because of that kind of bait and that kind of malarkey that the courts have established rules that the police have to follow in connection with interrogating a suspect.”

Tragg grinned. “Well, Mason,” he said, “there’s no harm in trying, and, as far as you’re concerned, Miss Adair, I’m afraid you’re going to have to come along with us.

“I may say one thing to you, Mr. Mason, and that is that this dodge of putting incriminating evidence in a letter and sending it by post to a party at General Delivery is an ingenious device which smacks a little bit of legal counsel.

“Of course, I’m not making any accusation, but it has been done before, and it may interest you to know that as a part of police procedure now whenever a person is represented by counsel in a matter of this sort we make it a rule just as a part of general procedure to go to the post office and see if there’s any package addressed to that person at General Delivery. If there is, we take steps to get a search warrant from the state courts and an order from the United States postal authorities, in order to open the package and see what’s in it.

“I hope for your sake and the sake of your client that when we open that package addressed to Ellen Adair at General Delivery we don’t find a diary kept by Agnes Burlington — but I’m just a little afraid, judging from the evidence that we have at hand, that that’s what we’re going to find.

“And now. Miss Adair, if you will kindly accompany me to Headquarters, we’ll try to make the formalities of booking as painless as possible — that is, of course, unless you want to change your mind and explain your actions to me. If there’s any logical explanation, we’re willing to listen.”

“There’s no explanation,” Mason said, “logical or otherwise. We are standing on our rights to remain silent.

“I want five minutes to confer with my client, Lieutenant. Would you mind waiting in the outer office? Then I’ll surrender her and you can take her to Headquarters.”

“After they’re once arrested you’re supposed to have your conferences with them in a conference room at the detention ward,” Tragg said.

“That’s after they’re booked,” Mason told him. “Of course, if you want to adopt the position that you’re refusing to let me confer with my client, then I...”

“No, no, not at all,” Tragg said; “we’re not walking into any trap today — not if we can help it. You want five minutes?”

“Five minutes.”

“I’ll give you five minutes,” Tragg said, and, bowing sardonically, stepped out into the other office.

Mason turned to Ellen Adair. “Is Agnes Burlington’s diary in that envelope?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Out of the top bureau drawer.”

“All right,” Mason said; “now, you went there earlier. You found her dead. You made a search. You picked up the diary.”

“Yes.”

“Was there a gun anywhere there?”

“No.”

“Do you own a gun?”

“Why, yes.”

“What kind of gun?”

“A thirty-eight-caliber Colt.”

“Where is it now?”

“Heavens, I don’t know. Somewhere in my apartment I guess. I... no, I remember now. I loaned it to Wight. He wanted to do some target practicing. He was taking a girl out on a picnic and — well, he’s an awfully good shot and I guess he wanted to show off a little bit.”

“What did he do with the gun? Did he give it back?”

“No, he still has it, unless... oh, my God!”

“What now?” Mason asked.

“I remember now. He told me that he was going to put it in the glove compartment of my car when he got done with it.”

“Do you know if he did it?”

“No, but I presume he did.”

“Then when the police impounded your car they could have found a thirty-eight-caliber revolver in it?”

“I guess they could have.”

Mason said, “If it should turn out that that revolver is the fatal weapon, there’s nothing anybody can do that will save you. A jury is going to bring in a verdict of first-degree murder.”

“I... I guess you think I’ve been rather stupid, don’t you, Mr. Mason?”

“That,” Mason said, “is a very good appraisal of the situation. You’ve tried to be smart, and all you’ve done is outsmarted yourself.”

The lawyer stepped to the door of the outer office.

“Only three and a half minutes,” Tragg said cheerfully.

“That’s good,” Mason told him grimly. “Keep the change. You can have what’s left.”