Эрл Гарднер: The Case of the Buried Clock

“No objection,” Mason said, as Judge Canfield regarded him with a puzzled frown.

McNair read:

“Dearest Jeff:

Jack has done the most awful thing. I couldn’t believe him capable of such perfidy, such dastardly treachery. He is up at the cabin. I am going up there for a show-down. If the worst comes to the worst, you won’t see me again. Don’t think too badly of me. I can’t see why men like him are permitted to live...

There is no use my trying to tell you how much you have meant to me, Jeff, or what you have done for me. No matter what happens, I will feel that I am always close to you and that you will be close to me.

I am hoping that I can get Jack to see the light, and right, at least in part, the great wrong he’s done my father. For what he has done to me, I do not care. I can stand that. It will be humiliating, but I can take it. But I can’t take what he has done to Father, lying down. As this may be good-bye, I want you to know how very, very much you have meant to me. Your kind patience, your steady faith, your friendship, and the more which lay behind all this have been inspiration and sustenance to me. Goodbye, my dear.

Yours,

McNair handed the paper to the clerk of the court with a flourish. “Please mark this for identification,” he said, “as the prosecution’s exhibit.”

McNair turned to Perry Mason, glancing triumphantly at the clock, to note that once more the papers would have an opportunity to record a dramatic finish to the afternoon session.

“Is that all of your direct examination of this witness?” Judge Canfield asked.

“Yes, Your Honor. It is approximately four forty-five, and—”

Judge Canfield ignored the hint. “Cross-examine,” he said to Mason.

For a moment there was a flash of consternation on McNair’s face. It was quite apparent he had hoped Judge Canfield would adjourn court, and there was a sympathetic glint in the eyes of His Honor as he glanced at Perry Mason.

Mason faced the witness.

“You worked up this case, Mr. Jameson?” he asked.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You endeavored to uncover evidence in it?”

“Yes.”

“You did everything possible to unearth significant facts which might be considered as clues?”

“Yes.”

“Did you look down in that canyon to see if you could find the weapon which the defendant, Milicent Hardisty, is said to have thrown down there?”

Jameson smiled. “That was hardly necessary.”

“And why not?” Mason asked.

“Because her gun was found — where she had tried to hide it after the murder.”

“I see,” Mason said. “Therefore, it wasn’t necessary to look for a gun she might have thrown down into the canyon.”

“That’s right.”

“In other words, having found Mrs. Hardisty’s gun, there was no use searching for any other.”

“That’s right.”

“You knew Mrs. Hardisty told her sister she had tossed her gun over an embankment?”

“She claimed that,” Jameson grinned.

“And as an officer looking up facts in the case, you checked that statement by looking in the place she had indicated?”

“No, by looking in the place she actually hid the murder gun.”

“You don’t know it was the murder gun?”

“Well... of course — it was the gun she must have used.”

“And you are willing to swear there is no gun lying on the steep slope where Mrs. Hardisty told her sister she had thrown a gun?”

“I couldn’t swear that, but I’d bet a million dollars on it.”

Judge Canfield said sternly, “The witness will answer questions and refrain from extraneous comments.”

Mason smiled. “You don’t know this is the gun that killed Hardisty. You don’t know Mrs. Hardisty put the gun where it was found, and, as an officer, you have never checked Mrs. Hardisty’s story that she had thrown the gun which was in her purse down that steep slope. Is that right?”

“Well, I — do you mean, Mr. Mason, that the defendant had two guns?”

“I don’t mean anything,” Mason said. “I’m merely asking questions. I am trying to find out what investigation was made.”

“Well, we didn’t look in the bottom of the canyon, or along the slope.”

“So, for all you know, Mrs. Hardisty may have thrown a gun in the bottom of the canyon.”

“Well, yes.”

“And that gun may have been the thirty-eight caliber revolver which fired the bullet which the witness Pringle states had been used to bring about the death of a dog.”

“Well... I wouldn’t say that.”

“The question is argumentative,” McNair objected.

“I think it’s within the bounds of legitimate cross-examination, however; bearing in mind that counsel is entitled to show bias of the witness,” Judge Canfield ruled, “the objection is overruled. Answer the question.”

“Well... I — oh, I suppose she could have shot a dog and buried it at Dr. Macon’s house, and then driven up to the top of the canyon and thrown the gun away,” the witness said, with an attempt at sarcasm.

“And,” Mason observed, “by the same token, she could have driven up a little farther, killed a dog near the cabin and thrown the gun away. Then Dr. Macon could have found the dog, carried it home and buried it near his garage, couldn’t he?”

“Well, I don’t think it happened that way.”

“Oh, you don’t think it happened that way?”

“No.”

“So what you want this jury to do is to return a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, predicated on the way you think the thing must have happened.”

“Well, not exactly that.”

“Pardon me. I must have misunderstood you. That was what I understood to be the effect of what you said, the position you had adopted.”

“Well, there wasn’t any dog up at the cabin.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, there was no evidence that a dog had been up there.”

“And just what would you expect to find in the line of evidence that would convince you a dog had been up there, Mr. Jameson. Speaking as a detective, what evidence would you say a dog might leave behind that would tell you he had been there?”

Jameson tried to think of some answer, and failed.

“Come, come,” Mason said. “It’s approaching the hour of adjournment. Can’t you answer the question?”

“Well... well, no dog was up there.”

“And how do you know?”

“Well, I just know he wasn’t.”

“What convinced you?”

“There’s no evidence a dog had been up there.”

“That,” Mason announced, “brings us right back to the point where you stalled before. What evidence would you expect to have found?”

“Well, there weren’t any footprints.”

“Did you look for footprints?”

“Yes.”

“For a dog’s footprints?”

Jameson smiled. “Yes, sir.”

“And that was before there had been any evidence connecting a dog with this case?”

“Well, I guess so, yes.”

“But you were looking for a dog’s footprints?”

“Well... well, not exactly.”

“Then you weren’t looking for a dog’s footprints?”

“Well, not for a dog’s. We were looking the ground over.”

“And did you notice any dog’s footprints?”

“No, sir.”

“How about a coyote’s prints? Is that what those tracks were?”

Jameson thought for a moment and said, “Well, now wait a minute... Now, come to think of it, I’m not going to swear there weren’t any dog’s footprints, Mr. Mason.”

“And you aren’t going to swear that there were any?”