Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

Dibble took the oath, qualified himself as the diver who had been employed by the sheriff and the district attorney to search the bottom of the bay in certain definite localities.

“Directing your attention to the first location which was near a fuelling wharf immediately to the north of the yacht club, what did you find on the bottom?”

“I found a woman’s purse and a gun.”

“I show you this woman’s purse which has been introduced in evidence and ask you if that is the purse you found.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I show you a gun and ask you if that is the gun you found.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cross-examine,” Hastings snapped.

“Is this purse in the same condition as when you found it?” Mason asked.

The witness looked it over carefully. “Yes, sir.”

“The contents are the same?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There was no money in the purse when you found it?”

“Yes, sir, there was. There’s a coin purse in there containing three twenty-dollar bills, two ten-dollar bills, a five-dollar bill, three one-dollar bills and some small change.”

“That was in the purse when you found it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No other money?”

“No other money. No, sir.”

“The gun is in the same condition as when you found it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where was the gun with reference to the purse?”

“The gun was lying about... oh, twenty or thirty feet away, I would say.”

Mason said, “Now, the district attorney didn’t ask you, but apparently you are the diver who subsequently went to the point which I am now indicating on the coast geodetic chart by a penciled circle which I will mark with the word ‘yacht’. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you searched the bottom there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And found nothing?”

“That is right.”

“Absolutely nothing?”

“Oh,” the witness said, “there was an old bait can that had been used for bait and thrown overboard. That, however, was about a hundred feet from the boat; that is, the place where the boat was found.”

“But if the boat had been swinging around with the tide it would have been nearer to the boat at high tide?”

The witness thought for a moment and said, “Yes, I believe so.”

“How did you know it was a bait can?” Mason asked.

The witness smiled and said, “In water of that depth the illumination is very good. I was able to read the label on the can. It had contained canned beans and was empty. Therefore, I called it an old bait can.”

“What kind of a label?”

“Oh, just an ordinary label, a piece of paper that had been circled around the can and pasted.”

“You described it as an old bait can?”

“Well,” the witness said, smiling, “I didn’t see anyone fishing and I judged it had been there for some time.”

“With the label still on it?” Mason asked.

The witness frowned thoughtfully and said, “Well, come to think of it, since the label was still on it I guess I’d better describe it as just a bait can rather than an old bait can. It is a question of how old is old.”

The witness smiled at the district attorney.

“Thank you,” Mason said, “that’s all.”

“Now, if the Court please,” Mason said, “in view of this evidence I would like to ask one or two more questions on cross-examination of the prosecution’s witness, Stilson L Kelsey.”

“I think you are entitled to recross-examine any witness you care to in view of the introduction of this new evidence after the prosecution had closed its case,” Judge Hobart said. “Mr Kelsey, come forward.”

Kelsey, with something of a swagger this time, took his position on the stand.

Mason said, “Mr Kelsey, you were not at the press conference yesterday when the defendant told her story.”

“No, sir.”

“But you did hear what that story was?”

“I did.”

“And did you then hurriedly make a trip to the beach with a diving outfit, go to the place the defendant had described, dive under water, there find the purse belonging to the defendant and which contained some three thousand dollars in fifty and hundred-dollar bills, which you appropriated, and then, in order to plant evidence which would clinch the case against the defendant, drop the murder gun near the place where the purse was lying?”

“What!” Kelsey exclaimed. “Why, I—”

“Oh, Your Honour,” Hastings interposed, “this is improper cross-examination. This is completely incompetent. This witness is not on trial.”

“He will be on trial,” Mason said, “because I propose to show that before the defendant told her story I had a diver carefully explore the bottom of the bay at this point, that at that time the defendant’s purse was lying there with three thousand dollars in it; that I had the diver take out the three thousand dollars and substitute three thousand dollars which I had drawn from a bank and on which I had kept the numbers of the bills; that at that time there was no gun anywhere near the location of the purse.

“Now then, someone hurriedly went to the spot, removed the three thousand dollars from the purse and put the murder weapon where it would be found.

“That person must have been the murderer — the person who was Gilly’s partner, who joined him on the yacht sometime after the defendant had left, who had a boat which he tied to the yacht, who stayed with the yacht while the tide rose and the boat drifted to another part of the bay, who sat with Gilly while he made a meal of canned beans which they took from the boat’s stock of provisions; that they tossed the bean can overboard, that they then got in an argument, that this person accused Gilly of double-crossing him on the reward, and shot Gilly with the weapon which Mrs Bancroft had dropped to the deck of the boat when she jumped overboard.

“Then this person left the body on the yacht, after searching it for money and finding none.

“The murderer then rowed back to shore and—”

“Now, wait a minute,” Kelsey said, “you can’t accuse me of that because a detective was shadowing me. He followed me all the way from my interview with Eve Amory to the Ajax-Delsey Apartments.”

Mason smiled. “So you knew you were being followed?”

“Of course.”

“And,” Mason said, “what was to prevent you, knowing that you were being followed and the detective was shadowing the front of the Ajax-Delsey Apartments, from slipping out the back way, borrowing a car which you found parked there, and going to the harbour?”

“You can’t prove anything of the sort,” Kelsey said.

“Yes I can,” Mason said, “because those bills which I had placed in Mrs Bancroft’s purse were furnished me by a bank long after the murder had been committed, and the bank has the numbers of those bills, and unless I’m very mistaken you have that three thousand dollars in bills either in your pocket now or concealed somewhere in your room or in your automobile, and I intend to get a search warrant and—”

For one long, trapped moment Kelsey surveyed Mason, sized up the situation, then suddenly and before anyone could stop him, bolted from the witness stand and through the door to the judge’s chambers.

After the first numbing shock of surprise the sheriff went pell-mell in pursuit.

Mason turned and grinned at Bancroft.

From a distant corridor came the sound of a voice shouting, “Halt or I’ll shoot!”

Two shots were fired in quick succession.

A few minutes later the sheriff returned to court, leading a handcuffed Kelsey.

“Now then, if the Court please,” Mason said, “I think if the sheriff will search his prisoner he will find a roll of bills in the prisoner’s pocket and that the numbers on those bills will coincide with the list furnished me by the bank, and which I now hand to the sheriff.