Erle Gardner - The Case of the Substitute Face

“Quite certain.”

Mason said, “Look up at me. I want to impress something on you.”

“Go ahead,” she said, avoiding his eyes.

“No, look up here.”

She raised sullen, defiant eyes.

Mason said, “I want you to listen carefully to everything I say.”

“Go on and say it,” she said impatiently, “and don’t beat around the bush.

Mason said, “You told the captain you didn’t go on deck. You insisted that you’d left the dining saloon, gone to your stateroom, and your husband had left you there. Now then, you’re going to have to change that story. Public sentiment is a funny thing. You can change your story once and get away with it, if you have some good explanation as to why you didn’t tell the truth the first time. But you can never change your story twice. The next time you talk, you’re going to have to tell the truth, and you’re going to need some mighty good explanation of why you didn’t tell the truth the first time. Now then, don’t make any other statement until you’re prepared to go the whole way. I want the truth and the whole truth... Where did you get that money?”

“My husband gave it to me.”

“When?”

“After I’d gone up to the boat deck.”

“ Why did he give it to you?”

“Because I told him I had to have it to protect Belle’s interests.”

“Did he intimate that he was going to commit suicide?” Mason asked.

“Certainly not.”

“You didn’t have any idea he was going to jump overboard?”

“No, not then.”

“He didn’t try to jump overboard while you were with him?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Did you have a revolver?”

“No, of course not. That woman’s a liar.”

Mason said, “Look here, Mrs. Newberry. Suppose your husband told you he was going to commit suicide. Suppose you tried to stop him. Suppose he produced a revolver and shot himself, despite anything you could do. Suppose you tried to drag him to the stairs so you could get help, and suppose the ship, at that time, took a heavy roll to port which sent you sliding down against the port rail, still holding on to your husband’s body. You knew you were going to have to summon help. Would you, under those circumstances, have decided it would be better to remove his money belt before you gave the alarm?”

“Probably,” she said, “but that isn’t what happened.”

“And if you had, and your husband had recovered consciousness while you were doing it, started to struggle and gone overboard, then what would you have done?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

Mason said, “Wouldn’t you have given the alarm of ‘Man overboard’?”

“I might have.”

“Well,” Mason said, “ I think you did give the alarm.

She shifted her eyes and said, “Well, I didn’t.”

Mason said, “The Fell woman was up there on the boat deck, screaming. She was frightened and hysterical. Her screams could never have been heard on the bridge, but the telephone operator says some woman called from the social hall and said to report to the bridge there was a man overboard, and then hung up the telephone without giving any particulars. She seemed to be in a hurry to go some place or do something. Now, were you that woman?”

“No.”

Mason, staring thoughtfully at her said, “I think you were.”

“What makes you think that?” she asked, avoiding his eyes.

“You’re the only woman on the ship who could have put through that call and who wouldn’t have come forward and admitted it.

“Well, I didn’t do it.”

Mason said, “You have two defenses. One of them is that you had an argument with your husband on the boat deck. He tried to strike you. You went below to your cabin. After you left, some other person stepped out of the hospital and shot him. You could have used that as a defense if it hadn’t been for lying to the captain and trying to conceal that money belt. Your other defense is that your husband shot himself and plunged overboard after giving you the money belt. You can’t make that defense stick unless you can break down the testimony of Aileen Fell.”

“So what?” she asked.

“So,” Mason said slowly, “I’m not going to let you commit yourself until I know two things.”

“What are the two things?”

“One of them,” Mason said, “is whether Aileen Fell’s story will stand the test of cross-examination. The other one is why you’re lying about putting in that call from the social hall.”

“You don’t trust me?” she asked.

Mason said, “I’m afraid to trust you. There’s too much at stake. I’m afraid to let you tell your story until I know you’re telling the truth. You lied once because you thought you could get away with it. You’ll do it again if you think you can get away with it. And don’t overlook the fact that you can’t tell your story to the officers without telling them why you wanted the money. You can’t do that without disclosing that your husband was Carl Moar and that you thought the money had been embezzled.”

That’s going to come out anyway,” she said in a dull, hopeless voice.

“It’s going to come out that he’s Carl Moar,” Mason said, “but it isn’t going to come out for a few hours. And during those few hours, I’m going to get busy with the Products Refining Company. There’s something queer about that embezzlement. Rooney, the head auditor, holds his job because he’s related to the president. I have an idea he may be incompetent and the books may be in such shape he can’t show definitely who took the money. Now, if that’s the case and he knows Moar’s dead, he’ll make a flat accusation and perhaps doctor up the records to make that accusation stick. That will save his own face. But if there’s some legitimate reason why the Products Refining Company has been afraid to get out a felony warrant for Carl Moar, I’m going to find out what that is and spike their guns before they realize he’s dead.”

“Then you mean the embezzlement would never come out?”

He nodded.

“That would mean everything to Belle,” she said.

“Yes,” Mason said. “ If I can find some weakness in their auditing system and capitalize on that weakness before they know it’s Carl Moar who’s dead. But that means I’ll have to dash out just as soon as we dock. It means I’ll have to leave you to the mercy of the police officers and the newspaper men.”

“All right,” she said, her chin coming up, “I can take it. You do what’s necessary to help Belle.”

“You see,” Mason told her, “I’ve arranged for a detective to meet me at the dock. We’ll fly to Los Angeles and get busy. When I fight, I don’t stand up and block the other man’s punches. I try to find his weak point and hit him there. Now, in order to build up a good case against you, the district attorney will claim you wanted to get that money from Carl so you could get immunity for your husband, thereby saving Belle the unhappiness incident to exposure. It’ll take the district attorney a little while to get all that motivation pieced together. By the time he does, I want to have brought enough pressure to bear on the Products Refining Company so they won’t dare to make the embezzlement charge.”

Mason moved toward the door. She came to his side. There was animation in her eyes. “You can depend on me, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I’ll sit tight. They can’t drag a word out of me.”

“All right,” Mason told her. “Don’t answer any questions about your past. Don’t give them any clue which will enable them to link your husband with Carl Moar. Every minute you can delay them will give me that much more time within which to work. And,” he said grimly, as he opened the door, “I’ll need it.”