Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Duplicate Daughter

Perry Mason sat in the counsel room at the county jail and looked across at Carter Gilman as the latter entered the room.

“All right, Gilman,” Mason said. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“Mr. Mason, I don’t know. I swear I don’t.”

“Save the swearing until you get in front of a jury,” Mason said. “Then you’ll have to be sworn. Now, tell me what happened.”

“I had been in Las Vegas and came in on an early plane. I was supposed to be at the office this morning, but I thought I’d go to the house first. However, I never got there. Police were waiting at the airport and they picked me up and said they wanted to question me.”

“What about?”

“About the death of Vera Martel.”

“You know she’s dead, then?”

“Oh, yes. They told me that.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“I told them that... well, I finally admitted that I had been to see you about Vera Martel.”

“Oh, you did, did you? And why did you tell them you had been to see me?”

“Because I thought she was trying to blackmail some member of the family.”

“Now you say some member of the family,” Mason said. “Originally you told me she was trying to blackmail your wife.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking things over.”

“All right,” Mason said, “go on. What else?”

“Well, they asked me about my workshop and what kind of woods I’d been working with and where I bought my woods, and they asked me what I’d been doing in Las Vegas.”

“What were you doing?”

“Gambling.”

“Win anything?”

“No.”

“How much did you lose?”

“I guess I just about broke even.”

“Rather an uneventful trip,” Mason said.

“Well, I had my ups and downs.”

“Did they ask you when you first learned Vera Martel was trying to blackmail some member of the family?”

“Oh, yes. They asked me everything.”

“And what did you tell them in answer to that question?”

“I told them that I had seen Miss Martel’s car parked near my office on two occasions and near my house once. I also said a Miss Martel had called the house a couple of times.”

“Those were times when you were home alone?”

“Yes.”

“And you asked Vera Martel for her name?”

“She gave her name and said for Mrs. Gilman to call as soon as she came in.”

“And you gave your wife those messages?” Mason asked.

Gilman hesitated.

“Now look,” Mason said, “let’s quit beating around the bush. I don’t think Vera Martel was ever inside your house, I don’t think she ever called your wife. I’m pretty certain that you never delivered any messages to your wife saying that she had called and that your wife will so tell the police.

“Now, what happened is that Roger Calhoun hired Vera Martel because he had heard there was some sort of a scandal connected with Glamis and he wanted to find out what it was.

“Vera Martel dug up something and then she decided to play it smart. She started playing both ends against the middle. She wanted to know how much Roger Calhoun was willing to pay to get the information and how much you were willing to pay not to have her give it to Calhoun.

“So,” Mason went on, “yesterday morning you had a date with Vera Martel. She was to meet you in your workroom. You were to pay her ten thousand dollars. She came a little earlier than you expected and you wanted to get away from Muriell’s field of vision, so, despite the fact you’d eaten a full breakfast, you sent Muriell back to the kitchen to do some more cooking—”

“Good heavens! How do you know all this?” Gilman interrupted.

“I make it my business to know things,” Mason said. “You got up and left the table. You went out to the workshop. Vera Martel took the ten thousand dollars and then told you she wanted some additional money. You lost your temper and flew at her in a rage. She may have pulled a knife or a gun. You choked her and then, frightened to death at what had happened, stuffed her body in the trunk of your car, drove out to where you could hide the body. Then you went back and got Vera Martel’s car where it had been parked near your place, and...”

Gilman was shaking his head emphatically.

“Just listen for a while,” Mason said. “You got her car, drove out on Mulholland Drive, put her body in the car, ran the car over the grade.

“Then you decided you’d start building an alibi for yourself. You had an appointment with me at eleven thirty. You did your best to try and make it, but you had been doing a lot. You were a few minutes late.

“So you told me this story about Vera Martel and about what you wanted me to do, knowing all the time that Vera Martel was dead. Then you went out and started building your alibi. You arranged to have someone with you all the time. You didn’t know just when Vera Martel’s body would be discovered, but you knew that the longer you could postpone discovery the better chance you had.

“So you decided to trap me and use me as a witness to show that Vera Martel had been alive some time after she was actually murdered. So you fixed up a message with your secretary about your fingerprints, and had your secretary, whom you felt you could trust, call me from a telephone pay station at Graystone 9-3535 — that’s only a few blocks from your office. You had your secretary call me from that station while you were standing beside her. You had her try to disguise her voice by talking rapidly and say that she was Vera Martel, that you had been to see me, that you had given me the name of Edward Carter, that actually you were Carter Gilman, that you were a fool, that I was to ring you at that number and give you a message about fingerprints.

“So I rang you up at that number. I gave you that message and you pretended to be tremendously impressed by it and very frightened. You hesitated and you wanted to know how in the world Vera Martel could have known you were there unless you were being shadowed. Then, after you had put on a pretty good act, you hung up and your secretary called the office to see if you had come in yet. You dashed back to whatever place it was where you were building an alibi, probably a conference with some banker since that pay station is within three blocks of a branch bank where you do business.

“Later on, you went to Las Vegas. The records of the airplane company will show what plane you took. Once in Las Vegas you didn’t need to be quite so careful. Now, I don’t know what you went there for, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if it wasn’t to try and get into the office of Vera Martel to look for incriminating documents.

“That’s generally the plan you had worked out. By following it, you’ve bought yourself a one-way ticket to the gas chamber. Your secretary is loyal and she’d do just about anything you asked her, but when she finds out that she’s given a choice of being an accessory after the fact in a murder or telling the police the truth, she’ll tell the truth. They’re probably grilling her right now.

“If you’d called me as soon as it happened and had given me the facts, I might have been able to do something to help you. We might at least have made it look like manslaughter or second-degree murder. But now, with all this elaborate skulduggery you’ve worked out, you’ve made the whole thing appear to be premeditated murder and they’re going to get a verdict of first-degree murder.”

Mason quit talking and let his eyes bore into Gilman’s panic-stricken eyes.

“Well?” Mason asked at length.

Gilman shook his head.

“All right,” Mason said, “What’s the truth?”

“I’ll tell it to you,” Gilman said, “but I won’t tell it to any other living soul. I won’t go on the witness stand. I won’t even admit it if you should ask me.”