Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Crimson Kiss

She couldn’t make it. Her knees buckled. She tried to catch herself, then fell to the floor.

It was when order was restored in the courtroom that Perry Mason exploded his second bombshell.

“Your Honor,” he said, “either Fay Allison is innocent or she is guilty. If she is innocent, someone framed the evidence which would discredit her. And if someone did frame that evidence, there is only one person who could have done it, one person who could have had access to the defendant’s apartment, one person who could have transported glasses, toothbrushes, and toothpaste containing Fay Allison’s fingerprints, one person who could have transported clothes bearing the unmistakable stamp of ownership of the defendant in this case.

“Your Honor, I request that Anita Bonsal be called to the stand.”

There was a moment’s sudden and dramatic silence.

Anita Bonsal, there in the courtroom, felt suddenly as though she had been stripped stark naked by one swift gesture.

One moment she had been sitting there completely lost in the proceedings, trying to adjust her mind to what was happening, attempting to keep pace with the swift rush of developments. The next moment everyone in the courtroom was seeking her out with staring, prying eyes.

It was as though she had been quietly bathing and the side of the building had collapsed and left her naked and exposed to the curious eyes of the multitude.

In that sudden surge of panic, Anita did the worst thing she could possibly have done. She ran.

They were after her then, a throng of humanity, actuated only by the mass instinct to pursue that which ran for cover.

Elevators were too slow for Anita’s frantic feet. Behind her was the bedlam of the crowd, a babble of voices which speedily grew into a roar.

Anita dashed to the stairs, went scrambling down them, and found herself in another hallway in the Hall of Justice. She dashed the length of that hallway, frantically trying to find the stairs. She could not find them.

An elevator offered her welcome haven. It was standing with the doors open, the red light on above it.

“Going down,” the attendant said.

Anita fairly flung herself into the cage.

“What’s the hurry?” the attendant asked.

Shreds of reason were beginning to return to Anita’s fear-racked mind.

“They’re calling my case,” she said. “Let me off at...”

“I know,” the man said, smiling. “Third floor. Domestic Relations Court.”

He slid the cage to a smooth stop at the third floor. “Out to the left,” he said. “Department Twelve.”

Anita’s mind was beginning to work now, functioning smoothly, cunningly.

She smiled her thanks to the elevator attendant, walked rapidly to the left, pushed open the door of Department 12 of the Superior Court, and entered the partially filled courtroom with all the assurance of a witness coming to testify in a case.

She marched down the center aisle, gave an apologetic smile to the young woman who was in the aisle seat, then crossed in front of her and calmly seated herself in the middle seat in the row of benches.

She was now wrapped in anonymity. Only her breathlessness and the pounding of her pulses gave indication that she was the quarry for which the crowd was searching.

Then slowly the triumphant smile faded from her face. The realization of what was bound to be the effect of what she had done stabbed her consciousness. She had admitted her guilt. She could flee now to the farthest corners of the earth, but her guilt would always follow her. She would always be an object of scorn and contempt.

Perry Mason had shown that she had not killed Carver Clements, but he had also shown that she had done something which in the minds of all men would be even worse. She had betrayed her friendship. She had tried to besmirch Fay Allison’s reputation. She had attempted the murder of her own roommate by giving her an overdose of sleeping tablets.

How much would Mason have been able to prove? She had no way of knowing. The man was uncanny with his shrewdness of perception. But there was no need for him to prove now. Her flight had given Mason all the proof he needed.

She must disappear, and that would not be easy. By evening her photograph would be emblazoned upon the pages of every newspaper in the city.

Back in the courtroom, all but deserted now except for the county officials who were crowding around Shirley Tanner, Mason was asking questions in a low voice.

There was no more stamina left in Shirley Tanner. She heard her own voice answering the persistent drone of Mason’s searching questions.

“You knew that Clements had this apartment in seven-oh-two? You deliberately made such a high offer that you were able to sublease apartment seven-oh-one? You were suspicious of Clements and wanted to spy on him?”

“Yes,” Shirley said, and her voice was all but inaudible to her own ears, although her eyes told her that the court reporter, standing beside her with his hand moving unobtrusively over his notebook, was taking down all that was said.

“You were furious when you realized that Carver Clements had another mistress, that all his talk to you about waiting until he could get his divorce was merely another bait which you had grabbed.”

Again she said, “Yes.” It seemed the easiest thing to say, the only thing that she could say. There was no strength in her any more to think up lies.

“You made the mistake of loving him,” Mason said. “It wasn’t his money you were after, and you administered the poison. How did you do it, Shirley?”

She said, “I’d poisoned the drink I held in my hand. I knew it made Carver furious when I drank because whiskey makes me lose control of myself, and he never knew what I was going to do when I was drunk.

“I rang his bell, holding that glass in my hand. I leered at him tipsily when he opened the door, and walked on in. I said, ‘Hello, Carver darling. Meet your next-door neighbor,’ and I raised the glass to my lips.

“He reacted just as I knew he would. He was furious. He said, ‘You little devil, what’re you doing here? I’ve told you I’ll do the drinking for both of us.’ He snatched the glass from me and drained it.”

“What happened?” Mason asked.

“For a moment, nothing,” she said. “He went back to the chair and sat down. I leaned over him and pressed that kiss on his head. It was a good-by kiss. He looked at me, frowned, suddenly jumped to his feet, and tried to run to the door. Then he staggered and fell face forward.”

“And what did you do?”

“I took the key to his apartment from his pocket so I could get back in to fix things the way I wanted and get possession of the glass, but I was afraid to be there while he was... retching and twisting... and dying.”

Mason nodded. “You went back to your own apartment and then after you had waited a few minutes and thought it was safe to go back, you couldn’t, because Anita Bonsal was at the door?”

Shirley Tanner nodded and said, “She had a key. She went in. I supposed, of course, she’d call the police and that they’d come at any time. I didn’t dare to go in there then. I tried to sleep and couldn’t. Finally I decided the police weren’t coming after all. It was past midnight then.”

“So then you went back in there? You were in there when Don Ralston rang the bell. You—”

“Yes,” she said. “I went back into that apartment. By that time I had put on a bathrobe and pajamas and ruffled my hair all up. If anyone had said anything to me, if I had been caught, I had a story all prepared to tell them — that I had heard the door open and someone run down the corridor, that I had opened my door and found the door of seven-oh-two ajar, and I had just that minute looked in to see what had happened.”