The Case of the Singing Skirt

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mason paced the office floor in frowning concentration.

Della Street presided over an electric coffee percolator. A paper bag of doughnuts was on the office desk.

From time to time Mason would stop, take a few sips from a cup of coffee and munch on a doughnut.

"You're going to need something more nourishing than that," Della Street said anxiously. "Let me go down to the restaurant and get you a ham sandwich or a hamburger or-"

Mason motioned her to silence with a wave of his hand, once more resumed his pacing of the floor.

After nearly a minute he said absentmindedly, "Thanks, Della." And then after some two minutes added, "I've got to think."

"Can I help by asking questions?"

"Try it," Mason said. "No, wait a minute. I'll ask you the questions. You give me the answers. Let's see if I can detect anything wrong."

She nodded.

Mason whirled abruptly, stood facing her with his feet spread apart, his shoulders squared, his manner one that he sometimes used in cross-examining a witness.

"That gun Ellen Robb had," he said, "was locked in our safe from the time Ellen Robb entered the office until we returned it with one exception-when Drake took it to the ballistics expert. Now then, how could a bullet from that gun be in Nadine Ellis' body unless Ellen Robb fired it there?"

"It couldn't," Della Street said. "The time has come, Chief, when you've got to throw your client overboard. She's committed murder and she's lied to you."

"Now then," Mason went on without noticing Della Street's answer, "I took a gun out of my safe, a gun that we'll call the Loring Crowder gun. She put that gun in her purse. A bullet from that gun was also found in the body of Nadine Ellis. How did it get there?"

"The bullet was fired from the gun," Della Street said, "that's how it got there," and then added quickly, "not that I'm trying to be facetious, Chief. I'm just pointing out that the striation marks on the bullets show that it was fired from that gun. We have to face facts and we may as well face them now."

"All right," Mason said, "it was fired from that gun. Who fired it?"

"Ellen Robb had to fire it."

Mason said, "One thing we know for a fact and that is, the bullets couldn't have been fired simultaneously. They must have been fired after a very considerable time interval, probably an interval of hours. That's one thing we know that the police and the district attorney don't know. We have that much of an advantage."

"Why is it an advantage?" Della Street asked.

"Because we know something about sequence. We know that the bullet from the Crowder gun must have been fired into Nadine Ellis' dead body. Now then, once we establish that, Della, I'm not tied up with anything except being an accessory to having fired a bullet into a dead body. That's perhaps a misdemeanor-I haven't looked it up. Certainly it isn't homicide of any sort or an attempt to commit homicide."

Della Street nodded.

"On the other hand," Mason said, "I'm hoist by my own petard. Here I have been talking about this freak decision that holds that it's not murder to fire a bullet that would prove fatal into the body of a victim, if some independent agency fires another bullet into the victim and that second bullet results in death. I am assuming, of course, that the first person could be charged with assault with intent to commit murder. However, because I dug out these decisions, no one is going to believe anything I may say. The sequence is too, too damning. It looks as if I had tried to save a client by legal skulduggery and the juggling of evidence."

Della Street said, "Ellen Robb was sitting right here in the office when you were talking on the telephone with Darwin C. Gowrie, the attorney for Nadine Ellis. She heard you tell all about the subtle distinction in the decisions. She made notes in shorthand. You weren't advising her, you were advising Gowrie.

"Let's assume Ellen is a very smart young woman. She had killed Nadine Ellis with one shot fired from the gun which she said she had found in her baggage. When you juggled guns on her she knew it, and she took advantage of your attempt to aid her by taking the second gun-the Crowder gun which you had substituted in place of the gun she had when she entered the office- and went out and fired a second bullet into the body of Nadine Ellis."

Mason suddenly snapped his fingers. "We're overlooking one thing," he said. "We may have the time element all cockeyed."

"How come?" she asked.

"Suppose," Mason said, "the bullet from the Anclitas gun was fired into Nadine Ellis' body after the bullet from the Crowder gun?"

"It couldn't have been," Della Street said.

"Why not?"

"Because that gun was locked in our safe after you gave the Crowder gun to Ellen Robb."

"No, it wasn't," Mason said. "There's one very suspicious circumstance about that gun which we're overlooking. We took it down to Anclitas' place and planted it in the women's room."

Della Street's eyes became animated.

"Suppose we do have the order of the bullet wounds reversed," she exclaimed. "Suppose the first bullet was from the Crowder gun. Then the second bullet must have been from the Anclitas gun."

Mason nodded.

"Then you mean after the gun was returned to the powder room, George Anclitas took the gun, went out and fired a second shot into the dead body of Nadine Ellis?"

Mason nodded.

Della Street's eyes were sparking now. "That would account for the fact that he said nothing about having found the gun in the powder room. He must have missed it and must have had a pretty good idea of what had happened."

"What had happened?" Mason asked.

"That Ellen Robb had killed Nadine Ellis with it."

"But if this theory is correct," Mason said, "she wasn't killed with that gun. She was killed with the Crowder gun."

"All right," Della Street said, "we won't try to figure out how George knew Nadine Ellis was dead. But he did, for reasons of his own, take that gun, go out and fire another bullet into the dead body of Nadine Ellis."

"Now, wait a minute," Mason said. "You say he went out and did it. Remember that Nadine Ellis was out on a yacht and, figuring the dry fuel tank, the fact that the fuel tank had been filled when Helman Ellis and his wife were planning to take a cruise, the location of the boat, the yacht must have been out at sea for some time, and it would have been a physical impossibility for Anclitas to have taken the gun after we returned it, found the yacht and fired the second bullet. But if that had happened, the marks I made in the barrel with the etching tool would show up. Redfield would have noticed them."

"Then," Della Street said, suddenly discouraged, "it must have been done before, and your client has to be the one who did it."

Mason shook his head. "I'm still fighting for my client, Della."

Della Street said, "She's a millstone around your neck. You'd better cut her loose and start swimming. After all, you acted in good faith. You thought that Anclitas had planted a gun in her things and was going to accuse her of stealing that gun. You wanted to cross him up."

Mason nodded. "I wanted to handle the situation in such a dramatic manner that we would teach George Anclitas a lesson," he said. "You can see how my unorthodox tactics backfired."

"But can't you explain what you were trying to do when you get on the witness stand?"

"Sure, I can explain," Mason said, "but no one is going to believe me. Bear in mind that I had previously pointed out that when two independent agencies fired bullets into a body, only the person firing the last shot was guilty of murder, provided the first shot hadn't proven instantly fatal.

"The circumstantial evidence certainly indicates that Ellen Robb came to me, that she told me she had killed Nadine Ellis, that I told her to give me the gun, that I gave her another gun and told her to go out and fire another shot into the body of Nadine Ellis, that I intended to use my trick defense. Also that I then went back and planted the gun in George Anclitas' place of business hoping that he would make a commotion about it and I could involve him in the murder."

"Well, what are you going to do?" Della Street asked.

"I wish I knew," Mason said. "All I know is, I'm go. ing to go down fighting and I'm not going to throw my client overboard."

"Not even to save your own skin?"

Mason shook his head.

"You'll be disbarred."

"All right then," Mason said. "I'll find some other line of work. I'm not going to betray a client. That's final."

"Not even to tell the true facts?"

"I'll have to tell the true facts," Mason said. "I can keep them from finding out what my client told me. Any conversations we had are privileged communications. As my secretary you share in the professional privilege. They can't make me tell anything that my client said for the purpose of getting me to take the case or any advice that I gave her."

"But they can ask you if you substituted guns?" Della Street asked.

"There," Mason said, "I'm stuck. Unless I refuse to answer on the ground that to do so would incriminate me."

"Well, why not do that? They can't prove anything except by inference."

Paul Drake's code knock sounded on the exit door of Mason's private office, and Mason nodded to Della Street. "Let Paul in, Della. Let's see what he knows, if anything."

Della Street opened the door.

Paul Drake, looking as lugubrious as a poker player who has failed to fill a straight which was open at both ends, sized up the situation, said, "Hi, folks," walked over to the paper bag, abstracted a doughnut and accepted the cup of coffee that Della Street handed him.

"Well?" Mason asked.

Drake shook his head. "This is the end of the road, Perry."

"What do you know?" Mason asked.

"This time you have a client who really and truly lied to you. She's in it up to her beautiful eyebrows and she's dragged you in it with her."

"How come?" Mason asked.

Drake said, "She and Helman Ellis were really ga-ga. Anclitas is telling the truth."

"Go on," Mason said, as Drake paused as though groping for the right words in which to go on.

"You remember," Drake said, "when Ellen Robb came to you after she had been thrown out of The Big Barn and had the shiner?"

Mason nodded.

"She told you she had taken a taxi to the Surf and Sea Motel and you told her to go back there?"

Again Mason nodded.

"Well," Drake said, "when she first went to the Surf and Sea Motel, it was to meet Helman Ellis."

Mason resumed pacing the floor. "How long was Ellis there?" he asked Drake.

"About half an hour."

Suddenly Mason shook his head. "That doesn't mean necessarily that my client was lying," he said. "It means that Helman Ellis was following her."

Drake said, "This is the part that hurts, Perry. He wasn't following her. He arrived before she did."

"What?"

"That's right."

"How do you know?"

"My operative talked with the man who runs the place. Now that Ellen Robb has been arrested, he's beginning to think back in his own mind, trying to recall things that would indicate either that Ellen was an innocent young woman who is being framed or that she was guilty. He's naturally interested in the whole situation and he remembered that before Ellen Robb showed up on Tuesday night, a car drove up to the motel, turned in at the entrance, circled through the grounds and then went out, as though the driver might have been looking for someone. At first he thought the man was going to register and ask for a room, so when the car slowed down, this manager jotted down the license number on a scratch pad."

"The license number?" Mason asked.

"That's right," Drake said. "You know the way they register in motels. The man writes down his name and address and the make and model of his car and the license number.

"Nine people out of ten forget the license number and it's something of a nuisance because the manager has to go out and look at the license plate and jot down the number. So this fellow keeps a pad of scratch paper by the desk, and when a car drives in, there's a powerful light shining on the car from the porch of the office. The manager automatically jots down the license number and then when the people register he doesn't have to go out and look at the license number in case they've forgotten it. And in case they give him a phony license number, he knows it immediately and can be on his guard."

"Go on," Mason said.

"Well, the manager jotted down the guy's license number. Then the fellow didn't come in to ask for a room but turned around, drove out front and parked. So the manager tore off the sheet of paper containing the license number, crumpled it and started to put it in the wastebasket. Then he thought perhaps the man was waiting for a woman companion to show up so he smoothed the piece of paper out again and put it in his desk drawer.

"Well, about ten minutes later Ellen Robb showed up in a taxi. The manager took her registration and assigned her to a cabin."

"And then he saw Ellis come and join her?" Mason asked.

"No, he didn't," Drake said, "but he did see Ellis get out of the car and walk up to the motel, apparently going in to call on somebody, and the manager assumed it was Ellen Robb, the unescorted woman who had registered."

"And so the manager did what?" Mason asked.

"Did nothing," Drake said. "After all, motels aren't conducted along the lines of young women's seminaries, and the manager isn't in any position to censor a young woman's callers. If he tried to do that, he'd be involved in more damage suits than you could shake a stick at, and the motel would be out of business in about two weeks. Motel managers have to take things as they come. All they watch out for is that people don't get noisy and make a nuisance out of themselves or that some woman doesn't move in and start soliciting. Even in that event they're pretty cautious, but there are certain things that give them a tip-off in cases of that sort. That type of woman usually has a certain appearance that a manager can detect, and they almost invariably work in pairs."

"All right, give me the rest of it," Mason said. "How bad is it?"

"Plenty bad," Drake said, "and the worst of it is, my man is the one who uncovered it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he was trying to dig up something that would help so he went down to the manager of the motel and started talking with him and asking him questions about Ellen Robb. You see, we got a bodyguard for her, Perry, but there was almost a full day before the bodyguard got there and-well, if anything phony had been pulled, that was when it must have been pulled, so my man started asking questions about what had happened when Ellen Robb registered and what had happened right afterwards, whether she had any visitors.

"So then the motel manager recalled this man and-"

"Get a good look at him?" Mason asked.

"Apparently a hell of a good look," Drake said. "The fellow walked right past the light which shines out from the office, and the manager described the guy. The description fits Helman Ellis to a T. Moreover, after my man got to asking questions, the fellow remembered that he'd smoothed out this crumpled sheet of paper with the license number on it and had put it in the drawer of the desk. Then the next day he put in some timetables and some memos and he wondered if that crumpled piece of paper might not still be in there.

"So sure enough, he dug into the drawer and pulled out that crumpled piece of paper. There's one break in the case."

"What's that?" Mason asked.

"My man pretended that the incident didn't have any particular importance and managed to get possession of that crumpled piece of paper. We've checked the license number. It's the number of Helman Ellis' automobile."

"That little tramp!" Della Street said bitterly. "Double-crossing us like that!"

Mason said, "She swore up and down there was nothing between her and Ellis, that she hadn't seen him since before that final blowup at The Big Barn Tuesday night."

"I take it," Drake said dryly, "that leaves you behind the eight ball."

"Just as far behind the eight ball as you can get," Mason said. "Now I know my client was lying and that puts me in the position of being an accomplice."

"Perry," Drake asked, "did you actually substitute guns?"

Mason said, "I don't need any rehearsal, Paul."

"What do you mean?"

"Hamilton Burger is going to pour the questions at me and I'll be busy answering them then. If you want to know what happened, listen to me on the witness stand."

"If you did," Drake said, "the murder must have been committed during the period between-"

Mason suddenly snapped his fingers. "Wait a minute, Paul. What's the time element in this thing?"

"What do you mean?" Drake asked.

Mason said, "Our office work sheets show the time that Ellen Robb left the office. Now then, I'll tell you this much, Paul. If a bullet was fired into the body of Nadine Ellis from the gun which Ellen Robb had with her when she was arrested, it had to be fired during the interval of time between the hour she left the office here, Wednesday morning, and the time she showed up at the Surf and Sea Motel. So let's check the time element there."

"What good will that do?" Drake asked. "You know she had the opportunity because she did it. There must have been sufficient time for the murder to have been committed because she did go to the yacht and she did fire the bullet from that gun-if the district attorney's theory is right and you switched guns on her-and I take it that the theory is right."

"Take any theory you want to," Mason said. "I'm not making any admissions-not yet."

"Well, I can give you the time she checked in at the motel," Drake said. "It was at eleven-fifty, Tuesday night."

Mason nodded to Della Street. "Let's get our work sheets, Della. Let's see what time she left the office."

Della Street opened the date book to the date, ran down the page of the date book and said, "She arrived here at nine-twenty on the morning of Wednesday the tenth and left at nine-forty-five."

Mason said, "Mrs. Ellis was alive Wednesday morning. Her husband saw her early that morning."

"She couldn't have committed the crime after seven on Wednesday evening," Drake said, "because we had a bodyguard on the job. She was virtually under surveillance. Moreover, she went to the motel in a taxicab Tuesday night. Wednesday morning she went out before the manager saw her. Presumably she went to the bus station, took a bus and then a cab to your office. She left your office, took a bus back to Costa Mesa and then a taxi to the motel.

"We've traced her on the journey back to Costa Mesa and there's no question of the time schedule there. The manager is certain she didn't leave the motel again Wednesday afternoon, and then our bodyguards were on the job.

"So she must have killed Mrs. Ellis on the yacht between 6:oo A.M. Wednesday when the evidence shows Mrs. Ellis left for the yacht, and the time she would have had to have taken a bus to get to your office Wednesday morning."

"Provided she took a bus," Mason said. "She could have used taxicabs, and stopped by the yacht club long enough to have committed the murder and then gone to my office."

Drake said, "Ten to one, Perry, that's exactly what she did, and Hamilton Burger is going to come up with the cabdrivers who will identify her."

Mason was thoughtful. "You had men watching the unit of the motel. You were guarding against people who might have tried to hurt her, but she wasn't under surveillance."

Drake shook his head. "There was only one door in that motel unit, Perry. My men were watching to see that no one went in who might intend to make trouble and, by the same sign, they can also be sure that no one went out."

"Your men are thoroughly dependable?" Mason asked.

"The best."

"And they keep records?"

"Just like your own time records," Drake said.

"The men didn't leave for anything?"

"Not a thing," Drake said. "There were two men on the job. When one of them would go to report or powder his nose, the other man would be there waiting. You told me you wanted a one-hundred per cent job of bodyguarding and you got a one-hundred per cent job of bodyguarding."

"And when I went out there," Mason said. "I told you to dismiss the bodyguards."

"You told me to dismiss the bodyguards, but Mrs. Ellis was dead by that time-that was shortly before Ellen Robb was arrested."

A slow smile twitched at the corners of Paul Drake's mouth. "Perhaps," he said, "you can get Hamilton Burger's theory fouled up on the time element but… He let his voice trail into silence, then shrugged his shoulders.

"Exactly," Mason said. "Your mind has run up against the fact that the proof is mathematical. The bullet was fired from that gun. If I gave her that gun, Paul, she fired the bullet from it after I gave it to her. And she simply had to have had time to fire the bullet, regardless of when she fired the bullet."

"But if Nadine Ellis was dead at the time the second bullet was fired," Drake said, "the crime is simply that of desecrating a corpse. That's only a misdemeanor. It may not be that."

"You're forgetting the implications," Mason said. "If she knew where the body was and if she went and fired a second bullet into it, it was because she had committed the murder and was taking advantage of this legal technicality she overheard me discuss over the telephone."

Mason looked at his wrist watch, sighed, and said, "Well, this is the end of a perfect day, Paul. We're going to have to leave for court in order to be there at eight o'clock. As long as I can find some way to crossexamine Ellis, I can stall off the fatal blow, but the minute I quit asking him questions Burger will call me as a.witness and then I'm all washed up-and the worst of it is Judge Keyser knows exactly what the score is and doesn't intend to let me stall. I've got to use all my ingenuity to prolong this case until I can figure out some way of keeping off that witness stand."

Mason helped Della Street on with her coat, switched off the lights.

As they went out the door Paul Drake said, "I know now how a fellow feels when they come to get him on the day of the execution and start leading him along the last mile to the gas chamber."

"Nice feeling, isn't it?" Della Street said.

Mason might not have heard them. His eyes thoughtful, he walked toward the elevators with the same steady rhythm that had marked his pacing of the office floor.