Erle Gardner - The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

“You did that?”

“Yes. It was the best advice I ever had.”

“And you’re well-treated in this job?”

“My hours are twice as long as they should be. I’m paid about half of what I should be getting. I’m treated courteously. I’m told to keep my mouth shut. It’s not the best hotel in the city. It’s a third-rate hotel and caters to third-rate business with all that it means. I keep my eyes open, my ears open, my mouth shut, and my nose clean, and I’m still there. Now, I take it that answers your question, Mr. Mason, and you’ve had your fun. Tomorrow regular residents of the hotel will know that the night clerk is an ex-convict.”

“For your information,” Mason told him, “I think that this is the only time in my courtroom experience I have ever asked a witness if he had ever been convicted of a felony. Personally I believe that when a man has paid his debt to society, the debt should be marked off the books. However...”

“Oh, Your Honor, I object to all this self-justification on the part of Counsel,” Hamilton Burger said. “He’s tipped over the apple cart and ruined this young man’s career, and now he’s trying to present an alibi in the unctuous manner...”

Judge Lennox pounded his gavel. “The district attorney,” he said, “will refrain from offensive personalities. Mr. Mason is within his legal rights and the Court thinks it sees the general purpose in the back of Mr. Mason’s interrogation. If you have any specific objections to make, make them when Counsel has finished asking his questions... Proceed, Mr. Mason.”

Mason said, “Thank you, Your Honor.”

He turned to the witness and said, “This police sergeant who befriended you has kept an eye on you?”

“Oh, yes. He’s the head of the Vice Squad.”

“He checks up on you?”

“Yes.”

“Frequently?”

“Sure. They keep an eye on the hotel. Things happen there. We can’t help it, but the management doesn’t take part in any of that stuff. We don’t ask to see the marriage license when a couple registers, but neither do the high-class hotels. We try to keep the bellboys from furnishing call girls, and we don’t rent rooms to known dope peddlers.

“That’s where my knowledge of faces comes in handy. The hotel was in bad and the D.A. was threatening to close the place up. The owners had to clean up or lose their investment.”

And the witness made a little bow to Hamilton Burger, who tried to look virtuously disdainful.

“And because of that the management is anxious to cater to the district attorney?” Mason asked.

“Objected to as calling for a conclusion of the witness,” Burger said.

“Sustained.”

“How about you yourself?” Mason asked. “Do you wish to cater to the district attorney?”

“I don’t want him as an enemy. Any time the authorities turn thumbs down on me, I’m out. But that hasn’t made me tell any lies. I’m telling exactly what happened.”

“Yet you were glad of a chance to be of assistance to the district attorney?”

“I’m sorry I was ever called as a witness.”

“But you welcomed a chance to be of service to the district attorney?”

“I felt it might come in handy sometime, if you want to put it that way.”

Mason turned to Hamilton Burger and said, “I think it is only fair at this time, Mr. District Attorney, to acquaint the Court with what I understand is the general background of your case.”

“I’ll handle my case in my own way,” Hamilton Burger said.

“However, as I understand it generally,” Mason said to the judge, “the police have in their possession a revolver which had been pawned in Seattle. The pawnbroker is here in court and he will presently identify the defendant Dixie Dayton as the person who pawned that weapon. And that weapon was, according to the evidence of the ballistics department, as will be presently brought out by Mr. Mott, the weapon which was used in the murder of one Robert Claremont, a murder which took place something over a year ago here in this city, and, as I understand it, it is the contention of the prosecution that it was because of an attempt to cover up that murder that Morris Alburg and Dixie Dayton planned the murder of George Fayette.”

Hamilton Burger’s face showed complete, utter surprise.

“Is that generally the background of the prosecution’s case?” Mason asked him.

“We’ll put on our own case,” Hamilton Burger said.

Judge Lennox said, “You may put on your case, Mr. Burger, but the Court is entitled to know generally whether this outline of the background of the case as given by the defendants’ Counsel is correct.”

“It is substantially correct, Your Honor,” Burger said sullenly. “I had assumed Counsel for the defendants would try to keep out this evidence. His statement comes as a surprise.”

Judge Lennox frowned. “I can now appreciate the reason for the comments of the District Attorney concerning testimony regarding other crimes which might furnish in some way a motive for the crime charged in this case.”

Mason sat in the mahogany counsel chair, his long legs crossed in front of him, his eyes thoughtful, speculative, regarding the young man on the witness stand.

“Now on the night in question you were acting both as night clerk and switchboard operator?”

“Yes.”

“And there was a call from room 721 — a woman saying, ‘Call the police’?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you did nothing about that?”

“Certainly I did. The woman hung up. I immediately called back on the phone, and asked what was the trouble. She laughed at me and said to be my age, that it was a gag.”

“You did nothing else?”

“Certainly not. I assumed her boy friend had become a little too wolfish and so she decided she’d throw a scare into him. But she obviously wasn’t worried.”

“Did it occur to you that another woman had answered your ring?”

“Not at the time. In the Keymont you don’t call the police for anything short of a riot. You handle trouble yourself.”

“Yet you did call the police later?”

“When a revolver shot was reported, yes. You can’t overlook a revolver shot.”

Once more Mason regarded the witness with thoughtful speculation.

“Your employers know about your criminal record, Mr. Hoxie?”

“I’ve told you they did.”

“And it’s brought up to you once in a while?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Whenever you are called upon to do something that might be perhaps a little bit irregular?”

“You have no right to examine me about anything except the facts in this case,” the witness retorted.

“Quite right,” Mason said, and, without turning his head, said over his shoulder, “Is Lieutenant Tragg in court?”

“Here,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

Mason said, “Lieutenant, you have a photograph of Robert Claremont, the rookie cop who was murdered in this city something over a year ago. Would you mind stepping forward and showing that photograph to the witness?”

“What does all this have to do with the present case?” Hamilton Burger asked irritably.

“It may have a great deal to do with it,” Mason said, without even turning toward the source of the interruption, but keeping his eyes fixed on the witness. “I take it you gentlemen would really like to solve the Claremont murder?”

“I would,” Lieutenant Tragg said, striding toward the witness stand.

Lieutenant Tragg extended a photograph to Perry Mason.

“Show it to the witness,” Mason said.

Lieutenant Tragg moved up to stand by the witness, holding out the photograph.

The witness looked at the photograph, started to shake his head, then extended his hand, took the photograph, looked at it and held it for a moment.