Erle Gardner - The Case of the Troubled Trustee

"They're in Paul's office."

"Who's the witness?"

"A man who lives within about a hundred yards of the fairway at the Barclay Country Club. His house is not too far from the tee-off position on hole number seven.

"He heard a shot on the night of the twenty-first and it was earlier than the time the prosecution thinks the murder was committed."

Perry Mason's face lit up in a smile. "I've been waiting for a break in this case," he said, "and this may be it. Get him in here, Della."

Della manipulated the dial of the phone and a moment later she said, "He's on his way."

"Now then," Mason said, "get me a blank subpoena on behalf of the defense. As soon as I ask this fellow his name, you take it down, slip out to the other office, fill the name in on the subpoena and return it to me.

"No matter what happens we aren't going to let this man leave this office without having a subpoena slapped on him as a defense witness."

Della Street nodded, moved over to the filing case, took out the folder in the case of People of the State of California vs. Kerry Dutton, removed the original subpoena and a copy; then stepped out to the other office to place them out of sight.

"All ready," she said.

Drake's code knock sounded on the exit door.

Mason nodded to Della Street, who opened the door.

Paul Drake ushered in a tall, somewhat loose-jointed man in his middle fifties; a man with keen eyes, bushy eyebrows, prominent ears, a long thin neck.

"This is Mr. Mason," Drake said. "Mason, this is George Holbrook. Mr. Holbrook lives out by the Barclay Country Club."

"George Holbrook, is it?" Mason asked, shaking hands. "Any middle initial, Mr. Holbrook?"

"Sure," Holbrook said, grinning. "A conventional one. George W. Holbrook. The 'W' standing for Washington."

Della Street silently slipped from the room.

"Well, sit down, Mr. Holbrook," Mason said. "I understand you know something about this case?"

"Maybe I do and maybe I don't," Holbrook said, sitting down in the chair and crossing his long legs in front of him, then after a moment clasping bony fingers around his upthrust right knee.

"Trouble is, Mr. Mason, you can't tell these days what you hear. There are so many sounds, so many noises, among them sonic booms, a fellow never knows quite what he does hear."

"Suppose you tell me about it," Mason said.

"Well, I got to reading about this thing in the paper and all of a sudden it struck me right between the eyes. I said to my wife, 'Hey, wait a minute, wasn't that the night I heard the shot?'"

"You're not certain of the date?" Mason asked, his voice showing his disappointment.

"Now, wait a minute," Holbrook said. "I think I can fix the date all right. I was telling you what I'd said to the wife."

"Go ahead," Mason said.

"We'd just got a wire from my wife's sister that she was arriving on the ten-fifty plane and we were sitting there talking it over. Then my wife went out in the kitchen and 1 stepped out on the front porch for a little breath of air-and a puff or two on a cigarette."

Holbrook grinned. "The wife doesn't like smoking in the house. She has a very sensitive nose, and tobacco smell just doesn't agree with her, so I kind of step out when I'm smoking and- Well, she'd like to have me swear off. I guess she thinks I have. So what with one thing and another, I kind of sneak out when I'm smoking."

"Go ahead," Mason said.

"Well, I heard this shot. I'm pretty darn sure it was a shot. I've done hunting in my time and I think I know a shot when I hear one."

"And what happened?"

"Well, I stood there looking, trying to see where the shot came from."

"You couldn't locate it from the sound?"

"I think it was out on the golf course somewhere. That's where it sounded like."

"You checked the date because of the arrival of your sister?"

"That's right. She came on the twenty-first."

"How did it happen," Mason said, "that the next morning, with the papers full of a body having been found on the golf course, you didn't connect up the shot with the murder?"

"That was simple," Holbrook said. "The wife's sister had always wanted to take a motor tour and she was due in at ten-fifty. We picked her up at the airport and, of course, she was all packed, so my wife suggested we take the motor trip she'd been wanting. I guess the women had had it planned that way all along. They'd been using the long distance phone back and forth. You can't get ahead of a couple of women-can't get ahead of one, for that matter.

"Well, anyway we started off at six o'clock the next morning, had breakfast along the road, and took a swing up through Northern California around the Redwood Highway, then came back through Yosemite Park. What's more, with the excitement of the sister coming, and going down and meeting the plane and all that, I just pretty nearly forgot about that shot. It wasn't until I got to reading in the paper about this case that I got to thinking about it again."

"You hadn't heard about the murder?" Mason asked.

"Why, sure we'd heard about it," Holbrook said. "Talked about it, as a matter of fact.

"I first heard it on the radio when we were between Modesto and Sacramento, somewhere along in there. I didn't pay too much attention to it the first time I heard it, just a murder that had been committed on a golf course. Then the second time, my wife perked up and said, 'Why, George, that's the golf course near our house.' And I got to thinking and said, 'I guess that's where it was all right.'

"Then we got to Sacramento and stayed there overnight. Then went on up to Redding and I got a San Francisco paper in Redding and- Well, I just sort of like to keep in touch with the comic strips."

Holbrook broke off to grin amiably at Mason. "Wife says I'm just a grown-up juvenile; but doggone it, I do like to read the comic strips."

Mason nodded.

"Well, there was something in the paper there about the body being found on the seventh tee. I didn't pay much attention to what that meant because, until a few days ago, I didn't know where the seventh tee was. I'm retired and the income isn't enough to afford golf.

"It was after this trial started that one of the newspapers published a map of the golf course. That's a long course. It stretches down quite a ways and has about six holes strung out one right after the other."

"And this map showed the location of the body?"

"That's right. Showed it with reference to the seventh tee and showed the seventh tee with reference to the streets-the cross streets out there."

Holbrook shifted his position. "You see, when the golf course was first laid out, that was all open land out there but they only owned just so much of it so they kept the golf course on the land they owned. Then with the golf course there, the subdividers moved in and it seems like in no time at all the thing was all built up.

"We bought our house right after the big boom-and that was fifteen years ago, I guess. I was working then. Been living there ever since."

"Have you ever played golf?"

"Got no use for it. As far as I'm concerned, it's just taking a bunch of sticks, going up to a ball, hitting the ball where the sticks aren't, then packing the sticks up to where the ball is and repeating it all over."

Mason said, "Can you fix the exact time that you heard the shot?"

"Now, that's what I'm talking about," Holbrook said. "I'm really certain that it was way before ten o'clock."

"How do you know?"

"Because I listen to news at ten o'clock and I'm pretty sure the news hadn't come on yet."

"How long before ten o'clock?"

"Well, I was out there on the porch taking a smoke and-"

"Was it dark?" Mason asked.

"Yes, it was dark. I remember the cigarette glowed when I threw it away out there on the front lawn, and I got to wondering if my wife had maybe seen the end of the cigarette glowing when I threw it-but she hadn't. That doesn't mean she didn't know what I went out there for, but I guess she was excited over her sister coming and all.