The Case of the Rolling Bones

Chapter 13

The long table ran the length of the visitors‘room in the county jail. On each side of this table, chairs were grouped. Dividing the table, running lengthwise along it, and from one end of the room to the other, stretched a meshed screen of heavy wire, extending from the ceiling to the floor. This screen was supported by steel frameworks which contained two doors. Access to the room was through a species of anteroom which was separated from the visitors’ room by iron bars. In this anteroom, two men were constantly on guard, a locker, containing riot guns and tear gas bombs, close at hand.

Perry Mason entered the anteroom and presented a pass to the attendant. The attendant scrutinized it, stepped to the telephone, and said, “Send Alden Leeds up.” He stamped the pass with a rubber stamp, unlocked a steel door, ushered Mason into one side of the divided room, and locked the door behind the lawyer.

Mason strolled over to one of the chairs, sat down, and lit a cigarette. At that time, there were no other visitors in the room. Morning sunlight, striking the barred windows at an angle, filtered weakly through to form oblong patches of barred shadow on the floor.

When Mason’s cigarette was half consumed, a door at the far end of the room opened, and Alden Leeds stepped directly from the elevator into the visitors’ room. He saw Mason, nodded, and walked across to seat himself in a chair on the opposite side of the table and on the other side of the screen.

Mason studied the other man’s face, a face which was within five feet of his own, separated by a table and a wire screen. It was possible, by leaning on the table, for a prisoner to get his lips within a few inches of the screen, possible for the lawyer on the other side of the screen, to place his ear within a corresponding distance.

Mason, however, made no attempt to lean across the table. Lowering his voice so that it was inaudible to the deputies, who were busily engaged working with their books, Mason said, “Well, Leeds, in an hour court opens. In order to represent you, I ought to know where I stand.”

Leeds sat quietly, with none of that nervous fidgeting which so frequently characterizes a prisoner. The morning sunlight showed the pouches under his eyes, the calipers which stretched from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth, the seamed skin which had been cracked in Arctic frosts, baked by tropical suns. His eyes were cool, steady, and cautious. “What,” he asked, “do you want?”

“I want the truth.”

Leeds said, “You have the truth.”

Mason, hitching sideways in the chair, crossed his long legs in front of him, and said, “The way I figure it, you learned that Milicant and Conway were the same. You entered the apartment to find Milicant dead. You knew there was going to be hell to pay unless you could find the documents which you knew, by that time, Milicant had in his possession. You tried your best to find them, and finally had to give it up as a bad job.

“It wasn’t a time when you were at your best The thing had hit you right between the eyes. You knew what you were up against, and the knowledge didn’t help to steady you. When you realized you couldn’t find what you wanted, you became more frenzied in your search.”

“Thanks,” Alden Leeds said.

“For what?” Mason asked.

“For not thinking that I killed him. I was afraid you would.”

Mason said, “Your fingerprints are all over the place. A witness saw you leaving the apartment. He stepped into the apartment right after you’d left. He found evidences of a search and...”

“Where was John Milicant?” Leeds asked.

“Apparently lying in the bathroom dead.”

“This man didn’t look?”

“No.”

Leeds shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I’m not trying to tell you your business, Mason. You’re a lawyer. I’m not.”

Mason said, “If you hadn’t lied to me at the start, I might have thought so, too. But I don’t think we can put that across with a jury now.”

Leeds accepted the statement philosophically. “Too bad,” he observed.

Mason nodded. “Isn’t it?”

There was a moment of silence. Then Mason said, “The warden up at San Quentin doesn’t care particularly about capital punishment. He carries out a death sentence when he has to, as part of his duties of office. He claims that new gas chamber is worse than the rope.”

Leeds turned cold, frosty eyes on the lawyer.

“Are you,” he asked, “by any chance trying to frighten me with the idea of death?”

Mason, meeting his glance, said simply, “Yes.”

“Don’t do it,” Leeds commented. “It won’t work.”

Mason, watching the man’s calm face, let his own features soften into a smile. “I was afraid of that,”he admitted.

After a moment, Leeds said, “All right. Let’s begin from there.”

Mason said, “The way I figure it, Emily Milicant killed Hogarty. You were away from the cabin at the time. She must have dusted out in a panic. You tried to overtake her, and couldn’t. Then, you did the best you could to cover up evidences of what had happened and...”

He broke off as Alden Leeds’ face twisted into writhing expression.

“You weren’t looking for that one, were you?” Mason asked conversationally.

For a moment, Alden Leeds seemed to be fighting for his self-control. But when he spoke, his voice was calm and well-modulated.

“No,” he admitted. “I wasn’t. You’re smarter than I’d figured.”

Mason said, “The worst of being an attorney is that you’re obligated to protect your clients. Sometimes your clients don’t want to be protected. They get chivalrous and try to take a rap. Then it’s up to the lawyer to go ahead and protect them anyway.”

Leeds said, “Look here, Mason. This is sheer nonsense, but it’s dangerous nonsense.”

Mason said, “Emily Milicant has taken a run-out powder. She sent me a phoney letter from a Yuma hotel, hoping that would pull the wool over my eyes.”

“She isn’t there?” Leeds asked, his voice either showing surprise or a well-simulated imitation.

“No,” Mason said. “That hotel has no party by that name stopping there — no one at all who answers the description.”

Leeds digested the information in thoughtful silence.

“Suppose,” Mason said, “you tell me a little more about Hogarty.”

“Suppose I don’t?”

“In that event,” Mason said, “I’ll fill in the gaps as best I can, and do as I see fit.”

“What makes you think Emily killed him?”

“Lots of things,”Mason said. “I don’t think you’re the type who would run away from a killing in a fair fight, and I don’t think you’d kill a man deliberately unless you did it to protect someone you loved. If you’d done that up in the Yukon, there’d have been two witnesses — you and Emily. You’d have stayed and faced the music.”

Leeds twisted his long fingers together. “Emily,” he said, “was high-spirited. She was fond of adventure, and the restrictions which were carried over as an aftermath of the gay nineties, didn’t appeal to her in the least. She went very much on her own. She was very willful, very determined, and very independent.”

“Go on,”Mason said.

“She’d met Hogarty. She came up to the claim as a young woman who wanted to throw in her lot with two prospectors on a basis of share and share alike. She was willing to do her share of the work to make the cabin neat and attractive, to do the cooking, to do anything else she could around the mine. But she wasn’t going to stand for some of the stuff Hogarty had in mind. Hogarty overplayed his hand when I was in at the nearest settlement getting grub. I came back and found her gone. She’d left a note.”

“Where’s that note?” Mason asked.

“Burnt,” Leeds said crisply.

“She killed him?”

“Evidently,” Leeds said. “They had a knockdown and drag-out battle. Emily shot, and the bullet knocked him over. He got up and ran out. She didn’t know where he was hit. It was toward the end of the season. It was getting dark early. I think it was the trail of the blood on the floor and in the snow that put her in a panic. She threw some things onto a sled, and started out. There were only two dogs left in camp. I was getting provisions with the big dog team.”

“When did you get back to the cabin?”

“Three days later.”

“You tried to find her?”

Leeds nodded. Evidently, he didn’t care to discuss that phase of the matter.

“And you tried to find Hogarty?”

“Hogarty was dead,” Leeds said. “He’d been shot in the abdomen. Another prospector took care of him. That prospector’s name was Carl Freehome. I, of course, didn’t know that until later. I got there to the shack, found it deserted, found Emily’s note. We’d struck it rich while we were working on a pocket. That had been before Emily showed up. We didn’t let Emily know. Hogarty refused to let her in on that. The gold was cached under the floor of the fireplace. I dug up the gold, used the provisions I’d got as a stake, and made it through to White Horse. I found no trace of Emily.

“Then was when I had the idea of throwing the authorities off the track by going out as Bill Hogarty. Then if anyone accused her of murdering Bill Hogarty, the records would show that he’d left the country. If they claimed it was Leeds she’d murdered, Leeds could show up very much alive and well. It was the best I could do for her under the circumstances.”

“You finally found her in Seattle?”

“Yes.”

“When did you hear about this man Freehome?”

“I didn’t hear about him. She did years later. She told me a few weeks ago when we met. I employed a detective agency to try to find him. The said he’d been seen two years ago in Dawson City. There, they lost his trail. Later on they heard a rumor he was in Seattle.”

“What became of Hogarty’s body?”

“After he died,” Leeds said, “Freehome loaded it on his sled, went up to the cabin. He found the hole where I’d dug the gold cache out of the floor, and was shrewd enough to tell that it had been a pretty good cache. He started looking around, and found the rest of the pocket. Lord knows how much was left in it. I wasn’t interested at the time. I was trying to find Emily... That’s my theory anyway, putting two and two together from the facts as I discovered them.

“Put yourself in Freehome’s place. It was a wild country. Winter was coming on. The ground was freezing up hard. Freehome had a chance for a stake. He dug a shallow grave, buried Hogarty, and went to work. When he’d finished with the claim, he left Hogarty where he was. He had no other choice. Legally, the claim was ours. He’d stripped it of the rest of the pocket. Naturally he didn’t want to have an argument over who owned the gold... I wanted to find him and tell him he could keep the gold — if he had any left. What I wanted was his story. I hoped that Hogarty had made some statement before he died. That’s why we flew north.”

“You didn’t find him?”

“Lord, no! We didn’t have a chance to even look. The police nabbed me first.”

Mason said, “Your nephew, Harold, apparently has been cutting a wider swath than he’s been given credit for. His mistress had an apartment in the same building with Milicant. Leeds went downstairs to call on Milicant. He’d found out Milicant was going under the name of Conway, and found out about the twenty grand. Harold didn’t know whether it was blackmail or what. He wanted to find out. He’s the witness who saw you leave the room.”

“Harold, eh?”

“It doesn’t seem to surprise you,” Mason said.

Leeds said dryly, “Nothing surprises me. I’ve had too many birthdays.”

“I don’t suppose,” Mason said, “that, under the circumstances, you’d care to go on the witness stand and tell your story.”

Leeds looked at him, steadily, slowly shook his head.

Mason scraped back his chair, and got to his feet. One of the deputy sheriffs reached for the telephone. Mason said, “I’ll see you in court,” and walked across to the barred door. The second deputy opened the door, escorted Mason through the anteroom, and out into the corridor. Leeds, standing behind the screen of the divided table, turned to wait — expectantly facing the door of the elevator which was to take him down to the jail.

Drake was waiting for Mason at his office. It needed but a look at Della Street’s face to tell Mason that the detective had bad news. “What is it, Paul?” he asked.

Drake said, “We’ve located Emily Milicant.”

“Where?”

“San Francisco.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“Hiding out in a hotel.”

“Anyone with her?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Who?”

“Ned Barkler.”

“Oh, oh!” Mason said. He slid his weight to the corner of the desk and lit a cigarette. “Together?”

“In the same hotel, but not living together.”

“How come?” Mason asked.

“Well, when you told me that she’d taken a powder on you and wasn’t in Yuma, we started checking airplanes. She’d been in Yuma all right, and probably mailed you the letter telling you she was going to the Border City Hotel, but after she did that, she went to the telegraph office and asked for messages for Mrs. J. B. Beems. She got a message. We don’t know what it was. Anyway, she took a plane for San Francisco as soon as she read the telegram. Barkler was waiting for her there.”

“They’re still there?” Mason asked.

“No,” Drake said. “That’s the bad part of it. The police located her about the same time my men did.”

“The same time,” Mason echoed.

“Uh-huh,” Drake said. “To me, Perry, it stinks. I think my telephone line has been tapped. It looks as though they’ve moved in on us. Every move we make is being watched.”

Mason’s face darkened. “By God,” he said, “I’ll bust those guys wide open!”

“I didn’t know my line was tapped. I’ve got the lowdown on yours,” Drake went on. “There was a stakeout where your telephone conversations were being recorded on dictaphone cylinders. We located the room. One of the men left there, and my operatives shadowed him. He’s a detective working under Homicide out of headquarters. You know what that means, Perry. They’re closing in on us.”

Mason said, “By God, they can’t pull that with me. I’ll find out who’s responsible for this and start turning on the heat. They...”

“They don’t care now,” Drake interrupted. “They’ve closed the net. They took Emily Milicant and Ned Barkler into custody, and are bringing them back.”

“On what charge?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “I don’t know, perhaps material witnesses, perhaps as accessories after the fact. They’re gunning for you, Perry, and they’re using big caliber guns. You know what they’ll do to me.”

Mason said grimly, “But they don’t know what I’ll do to them! Right now I could put Emily Milicant on the spot. If I had to, I could just about convict her of the murder of Bill Hogarty, and by letting the D.A. prove Milicant was Hogarty, I could rip their case wide open.”

Della Street said eagerly, “Are you going to do it, Chief?”

Mason, staring moodily at the carpet, shook his head.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Just an old-fashioned custom,” Mason said, “—one that’s almost out of date — that of shooting square with a client.”