Erle Gardner - The Case of the Substitute Face

She nodded. Her lips quivered. “I loved Morgan,” she said. “I believed in him. I... trusted him.” She started to sob.

Mason’s voice was filled with sympathy as he said to Judge Romley, “If the Court please, won’t it be more merciful to take a recess?”

Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake, Mrs. Moar, Belle Newberry and Roy Hungerford sat in Mason’s suite at the hotel, champagne glasses on the table, the neck of a ceremonial bottle of champagne protruding from a bucket of cracked ice.

“What I don’t see,” Hungerford said, “is how the devil you ever figured it out.”

Mason shook his head and said, “It will always be a matter of humiliation that I didn’t figure it out sooner. Marian Whiting told us her sister had seen Carl on the street in Los Angeles. Evelyn Whiting said she hadn’t seen him for years until she recognized him on the ship. She said he had told her he was going to commit suicide when she met him on deck. Della Street said she had seen him coming from Evelyn Whiting’s cabin. Mrs. Moar, herself, told me that whenever Evelyn Whiting appeared on deck with her patient in a wheel chair, Carl Moar was nowhere to be found. You, Belle, told me that your stepfather had been on one of Van Densie’s juries in Los Angeles and had been able to swing the jury into a verdict of acquittal. You said that had been two or three months ago, and it was at just about that time Carl suddenly became affluent. But, above all, I should have known the truth when Morgan Eves warned me there was a surprise witness who would jeopardize my case. Then, when I discovered Della was that witness, I should have known at once what had happened. Eves could only have known it through Evelyn Whiting and she could only have known it because she looked down and saw Della Street at the rail on the lower deck.

“Carl Moar tried to take the easy way. As is so often the case, it turned out to be the hard way, yet we must not judge him too harshly. He had confidence in Evelyn Whiting. He was a thinker, something of a dreamer. He didn’t have a great deal of what is known as worldly wisdom. He lived in an artificial world peopled largely by his own ideas and administered largely according to his own ideals. Evelyn Whiting had but little difficulty in convincing him that Morgan Eves was innocent. She had less difficulty because she herself really believed it. It looked like a good chance for Moar to do the right thing and at the same time pick up enough money to give Belle her chance...”

Belle Newberry, her eyes filled with tears, said simply, “I loved him.”

Mrs. Moar avoided Belle’s eyes. “I, too, loved him,” she said, “In a way. I don’t think I had a proper appreciation of his character. I was too ready to believe that he’d embezzled that money. But there was no other explanation I could think of. Carl loved Belle. I don’t think he loved me. I think he’d been a bachelor too long to ever fit into the give and take of married life. What he did, he did for Belle, to give her a chance to travel, to meet people of a different class... It was a terrible mistake — but he thought he was planning for the best.”

Mason pushed back his chair. “Well,” he said, “I don’t want to rush things, but Della and I must be leaving. My Los Angeles office phoned me an hour ago. A client is impatiently waiting to see me on a matter of the greatest importance. We’re flying down to Los Angeles in a chartered plane. How about it, Della, are you ready?”

She nodded.

Hungerford said, “Just a moment, if you please. I have an announcement to make. It won’t be made public for some time because of the tragic circumstances which have gripped us all, but... Well...”

Della Street raised her glass. “You don’t need to tell us the rest of it, Roy,” she said, laughing. “It’s a toast we’ll gladly pledge.”

In the plane flying southward, Della Street snuggled close to Perry Mason, slipped her hand down into his. “Didn’t she look beautiful, Chief?”

“Belle?” he asked.

“Yes. Her eyes were all starry and she was so Radiantly, quietly happy, so sure of her love — and of his.”

“She’s a mighty fine girl,” Mason said. “There’s only one I know of who can beat her. I’m hoping that sometime she’ll—”

She withdrew her hand from his. “Now wait a minute, Chief,” she protested. “Let’s not get too sentimental. You know as well as I do that you’d hate a home if you had one. You’re a stormy petrel flying from one murder case to another. If you had a wife you’d put her in a fine home-and leave her there. You don’t want a wife. But you do need a secretary who can take chances with you — and you have another case waiting in Los Angeles.”

Mason’s eyes squinted thoughtfully. “I wonder,” he said, “just what that case is. Jackson said it had an unusual angle he thought would interest me.”