The Case of the Singing Skirt

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In the small private dining room of the restaurant where Perry Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake so frequently lunched during the noon recess, the trio seated themselves at the table.

"I don't see what makes this seem such a devastating surprise to you," Paul Drake said to Mason. "I told you quite a while ago this client of yours was no lily-white angel. I take it, she's been lying to you."

"It's more serious than that, Paul," Mason said.

"How do you mean?"

"I'll let you in on a secret," Mason said. "If that gun committed the murder, I personally am mixed in it."

"Mixed in what?"

"Mixed in the murder."

"You are!" Drake exclaimed incredulously.

"Call it an accessory after the fact or suppressing evidence or anything you want, Paul. I just don't believe that gun could possibly have been used in the killing."

"Nevertheless, it was," Drake said. "The evidence shows it."

Mason, his face granite-hard with concentration, paid no attention to Drake's words and might not have heard him.

Drake turned to Della Street and said, "I don't get it. I've seen him skate on some awfully thin legal ice, but I've never seen him like this before."

Della Street shook her head warningly, indicating that Drake was not to pursue the subject.

Drake said, "What became of the gun that you gave me to test, Perry? That was registered in the name of George Anclitas."

"Just don't ask questions," Mason said. "Just eat your lunch."

The waiter brought in their orders, and Mason ate in thoughtful silence.

"Well," Drake said, as he pushed back his plate, "thanks for the lunch, Perry. I have had more cheerful meals."

Mason merely grunted in acknowledgment of Drake's remark.

"I'll get the chores done," Drake said, and left the dining room.

Della Street glanced solicitously at Perry Mason, started to say something, then checked herself.

As though reading her mind, Mason said, "I know you're wondering what's worrying me. The thing that worries me is whether the district attorney's office has baited an elaborate trap for me and I'm walking into it, or whether they have considered the case so dead open-and-shut they don't need to worry."

Della Street shook her head. "Hamilton Burger has his faults, but he's not entirely dumb. He would never consider a case, in which you were representing a defendant, a dead open-and-shut case."

"But," Mason said, "he sent this Donovan Fraser in to try the case unaided. Fraser is a young eager beaver, a relatively new trial deputy. He's anxious to win his spurs and prove himself, and he's probably a little more belligerent than he will be after he has had five more years of courtroom practice under his belt.

"Now, why did Hamilton Burger pick that particular trial deputy to oppose me? He has some veterans in the office who are remarkably good lawyers."

"Isn't Fraser a good lawyer?"

"I think he is. The point is, he's relatively inexperienced, and in this business there are some things you can learn only as the result of experience."

"That's the only reason you think he may be laying a trap for you?" Della Street asked.

"No, that's only one of the reasons," Mason said. "The thing that bothers me is that in preparing this case they have apparently taken so much for granted-and I don't think they'd do that."

"In what way?"

"For instance," Mason said, "this gun that they took from Ellen Robb is, as far as the case is concerned up to this point, simply a gun. Apparently they didn't make any effort to trace the registration of the gun. Now, I just can't understand that."

"Well, after all, they found it in her possession and they found that the test bullet matched the bullet found in Nadine Ellis' body.

"If you were district attorney, you'd call in any trial deputy who happened to be unattached and say, 'Here's a case you can't lose. Regardless of the fact that Perry Mason is on the other side, you can't possibly conceive of any set of facts that would keep a judge from binding the defendant over to the Superior Court on this sort of showing."

Mason nodded.

"Well?" Della Street asked.

"I'll grant all that," Mason said, "but somehow I have a feeling that they may be laying a trap. It's almost impossible to think that they wouldn't have taken the number of the gun and tried to trace it through its various owners. Now then, if… if they can trace that gun to my possession, then what happens?"

"Then," she said, "you're in the soup."

"That's what I'm thinking," Mason said.

"And if you're going to get in the soup," she said, "isn't it better to become righteously indignant in court and claim that someone has doctored the evidence, that someone has substituted the bullets, that the murder simply couldn't have been committed with the weapon that was found in the possession of Ellen Robb because you, yourself, had been the one who had handed her that weapon and you had handed it to her at a time that was after Ellen had gone to the yacht?"

"How do we know it was after?" Mason asked.

"Why, she- I see," Della Street said.

"In other words," Mason said, "suppose Ellen is smart. Suppose she came to my office and told me a story about having gone to the yacht looking for Nadine Ellis, that she couldn't find her, that she had a fight with George Anclitas and left The Big Barn, that she found a gun in her suitcase and doesn't know what to do with it. She would tell me all this before Nadine Ellis had been murdered. Then, after she had given me a good story and aroused my sympathy, she'd go out and murder Nadine and-"

"Could she have done that?" Della Street asked. "Did she have the time? Remember, we had her virtually under surveillance because you had Paul Drake put operatives on the job to act as bodyguards. You felt that someone might try to cause trouble."

"That's what I'm trying to remember," Mason said. "There was an interval from the time she left our office before the bodyguards picked her up. Now then, she could have gone out to the yacht and killed Nadine Ellis during that interval. Is she a smart little babe who's taking me for a ride, or is she the victim of some sort of a diabolical frame-up? And if it's a frame-up, how the devil could they have worked it? How much does Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, know? How much rope is he giving me, hoping I'll hang myself, and what are my duties in this situation in view of the fact that I'm supposed to represent my client and not disclose evidence against her?"

"That," Della Street said, "is a formidable list of questions."

"And a great deal depends on getting the right answers," Mason said.

"So what do we do?" Della Street asked.

"We get in my automobile and drive around somewhere, where no one will recognize us, ask us any questions or serve us with any subpoena or other documents until just before three-thirty. Then we go to court, and no matter what happens, we stall things along so that we don't have to reach any decisions until after court adjourns for the evening. Then we have until tomorrow morning to plan a course of conduct."

Della Street nodded, pushed back her chair.

"And," Mason said, "when we get back to court at three-thirty this afternoon, if we should happen to find that Mr. Hamilton Burger, the district attorney himself, has entered the case, we'll know that it was an elaborate trap and that I've walked into it."