The Case of the Troubled Trustee

Chapter Twenty

Back in his office, all of Mason's assurance vanished.

"Well?" Della Street asked.

"Get Paul Drake," Mason said. "We've got to do something or our man is going to be convicted of first-degree murder."

"What can you do?" Della Street asked.

"We've got to do something," Mason said. "We're going to have to think up something."

"You think it's that bad?"

"I know it's that bad. The idea of Dutton bucketshopping the stocks in the trust fund and deliberately deceiving the beneficiary into believing the trust fund was being exhausted just didn't sit well with that jury."

Della said, "Paul Drake's on his way down here now."

A few moments later, Drake's code knock sounded on the door, and Della opened it to admit the detective.

Drake raised inquiring eyebrows and Della shook her head.

Mason, pacing the floor, was engrossed in thought.

Drake slipped across to the client's chair and seated himself.

Mason said, "We've got to pull a rabbit out of the hat, Paul."

Drake nodded.

Mason continued his pacing the floor. "Something dramatic. Something that will drive home our contention."

"How does it look?" Drake asked.

"You know how it looks," Mason said, without changing the tempo of his stride or even glancing at the detective. "Hamilton Burger has alienated any sympathy the jurors might have had for the defendant. He's mixed up the only witness we had who could give any evidence that would enable us to talk about reasonable doubt."

"You've licked him so many times in front of a jury," Paul Drake said, "that I think you're being unduly pessimistic this time."

Mason shook his head. "Usually Hamilton Burger doesn't have a chance to strut his stuff. I get the witness on cross-examination and uncover some point which enables me to prove that the prosecution's theory of the case is erroneous. Before he's ready to rest his case, he doesn't have any case left.

"This time I've had to go ahead and put witnesses on the stand. Burger has had a chance to cross-examine them. The roles have been reversed. He's ripped my witnesses to pieces."

"Do you think it's true that he has two witnesses who will swear it was at ten o'clock the shot was heard?"

"It has to be true," Mason said. "Of course, I'm going to have a chance to cross-examine those witnesses and, believe me, Paul, there's something queer about that."

"What do you mean?"

"If they had been as positive as he makes them sound, he'd have put them on the witness stand as part of his case in chief. The fact that he's holding them for rebuttal indicates that he didn't intend to use them unless he had to."

"Do you think he'll just back away from the question now that he's got our witness confused?" Drake asked.

"I won't let him," Mason said. "I'm going to insist that he put those two witnesses on the stand and then I'm going to cross-examine them. I may get a break out of it, but I may not. I don't know. All I know is that the way the case looks at present, we've got a defendant who is headed for the gas chamber or for life imprisonment."

"Any suggestions?" Drake asked.

"I'm thinking of one right now."

"Such as what?"

Mason said, "Paul, start pulling wires. I want to get the latest and best metal detector that money can buy. I understand there are some new ones that are very sensitive."

"You mean mine detectors?" Drake asked.

"So-called," Mason said.

"And what do we do?"

"We go out to the Barclay Country Club and we start sweeping around the grass out in the vicinity of the seventh tee."

"Looking for what?"

"An expended cartridge."

Drake said, "Don't be silly, Perry! The murder was committed with a revolver. A revolver doesn't eject a fired cartridge."

"But a person who fires a revolver could eject a cartridge," Mason said.

"What do you mean?"

"If the murder was committed at nine o'clock, then someone who wanted a Patsy could have arranged to have Dutton out there at ten o'clock and then fired a shot the minute Duttoq's car hove into sight at the golf club. Then he could have tossed the gun to the ground beside the corpse and sneaked back down through the low places where he wouldn't show against the silhouetted horizon and made his escape, leaving Dutton to hold the sack."

"And so?" Drake asked.

"And so," Mason said, "we go out on the golf course and start exploring with a mine detector."

"This is right during the busy time of the afternoon as far as that golf course is concerned," Drake said. "Court adjourned early and if we go out there now, we'll interfere with a lot of doctors and dentists, bankers and professional men playing their mid-week round of golf."

Mason nodded.

"They'd kick us out," Drake said.

"Well?" Mason asked.

Drake looked at him and grinned. "You mean you'd like to attract attention?"

"Why not?"

"It wouldn't prove anything," Drake said.

"But the fact that we were out there looking for an extra shell would show that we attached considerable importance to Holbrook's testimony."

Drake thought the matter over for a while, then grinned. "I suppose you wouldn't object if the newspaper reporters knew about it?"

"Not at all," Mason said. "In fact, anything that we do might become quite newsworthy."

"The judge has instructed the jury not to read the newspapers," Drake said.

Mason looked at him and grinned, then turned to Della Street. "This, Della," he said, "is business. Go to the most exclusive, most expensive place in the city where you can get a sport outfit which will attract the roving masculine eye. Get a golfing outfit. Money is no object, but it has to be a city editor's dream-one that will look so good in a photograph, and on you, it would make a page one placement."

Della Street jumped to her feet. "Watch me go through that door," she said.