Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Duplicate Daughter

“I don’t have to talk,” Elliott said.

“Then you go to jail,” Mason said. “And if you lie, you go to prison for perjury.”

“And if I talk, Glamis is involved in a murder case?”

“Glamis,” Mason said, “is probably involved in the murder case right now. She had a chance to tell me the truth and she missed it. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

“Look here,” Elliott said, “suppose the police can’t find me.”

“They’ll find you,” Mason said.

“I’m not so certain they will.”

“All right,” Mason told him, “if you’re missing and the police can’t find you and the police learn that you were in that house early yesterday morning, and if the police find that Vera Martel was killed early yesterday morning, then you’re going to be the prime suspect.”

Elliott’s eyes began to blink rapidly. “Well?” he asked.

“Draw your own conclusions,” Mason said.

“Look here,” Elliott said, “how long have I got before the police start looking for me?”

“How do I know?” Mason asked. “They’re probably looking for you now.”

Elliott strode over to the door, said, “Very well, gentlemen, I’ve told you all I know and I have things to do.”

“Now look,” Mason told him, “if you’re planning—”

“You heard what I said, I have things to do. As far as I’m concerned, the interview is terminated.”

Mason glanced at Paul Drake, nodded and the two of them walked out into the corridor.

Elliott pulled the door shut behind them.

Mason beckoned to Paul Drake and led the way to the elevator.

They were silent until they had reached the sidewalk in front of the apartment house.

“Got your car here, Paul?” Mason asked.

“Uh-huh. You came in your car?”

“That’s right.”

“Want me to tag him?”

Mason shook his head.

“Why not?” Drake asked. “You know what’s going to happen. He’s going to get the hell out of there.”

“All right,” Mason said. “You remember what we told him. We told him we couldn’t give him any advice. We told him that if he skipped out he would become the number-one suspect in the case.”

“Yes,” Drake said, “you were highly ethical, but if I were in Hartley Elliott’s shoes and if I were in love with Glamis, I think I’d suddenly have some business that took me out of the country.”

“And you’d like to follow him to find out where he goes?”

“Well, it might help,” Drake said.

“Help whom?” Mason asked.

Drake thought that over for a moment, then grinned and said, “Okay, I get you, Perry. Do you want me to follow you to the office?”

“Keep me in sight all the way,” Mason said.

The preliminary hearing in the Case of the People of the State of California versus Carter Gilman started out in a routine manner as a conventional preliminary hearing.

However, veteran courtroom attaches noticed that the deputy district attorney, Edwardo Marcus Deering, was much more careful with his evidence and was laying a more firm foundation for an order binding the defendant over than would have been the case if the renowned Perry Mason had not been representing the defendant.

Deering, having confided to associates that this time he was going to establish such an ironclad case that not even Perry Mason could find a loophole in it, called the state police officer who had found Vera Martel’s body.

The officer described the tracks indicating a car had left the road, his subsequent inspection of the premises, his finding the body in the car wedged behind the steering wheel. He testified that the automatic gear-shift of the car was in the drive position but that, in his opinion as an expert, the car had been barely crawling when it moved to the outside of the curve and plunged down the grade.

The tracks were not those of a skidding car trying to make a curve and then lunging out of control, but between the shoulder of the pavement and the end of the road where there was a few feet of dirt, the tracks showed very plainly that the automobile had been pointed directly at the curve and had gone over, not at a tangent as would have been the case with a speeding car, but in a direct line which would have been the case only if the car had been deliberately pointed at the precipice.

Moreover, rocks which had been dislodged by the automobile as it went over the cliff indicated that the initial velocity of the car had been such as to displace the rocks only a very short distance. There was no indication of speed.

The officer introduced photographs of the car, of the body, and of the dislodged rocks.

Mason gave the testimony of the witness thoughtful attention, but when he was invited to cross-examine, smiled and said, “No questions, Your Honor.”

Judge Boris Alvord excused the witness and regarded Perry Mason with thoughtful speculation.

“May I ask if the defense intends to make any showing in this case?” he asked.

“We don’t know yet, Your Honor.”

“Do you know whether you will resist an order binding the defendant over?”

“Yes, Your Honor, we will resist it.”

“Very well,” Judge Alvord said to the prosecutor, “call your next witness.”

The next witness was an autopsy surgeon who testified to various broken bones and internal injuries.

“Can you give your opinion as to the cause of death?” Deering asked.

Judge Alvord glanced at Mason, expecting an objection. Mason sat tight and said nothing.

“In my opinion,” the autopsy surgeon said, “death was due to manual strangulation. The broken bones and internal injuries were post-mortem and were incurred, I would say, at least two hours after death.”

“Can you give an approximate time of death?” Deering asked.

“I would say that death occurred some time between seven thirty a.m. and eleven thirty a.m. of the day preceding that on which the body was discovered.”

“Cross-examine,” Deering said to Perry Mason.

“No questions,” Mason said.

The deputy coroner called to the stand identified the personal property which had been in the purse of Vera Martel. The purse had been taken from the wrecked automobile.

“With particular reference to this key container containing several keys,” Deering asked, “did you mark this key container in any way for identification?”

“I did.”

“Does that have your identifying mark on it?”

“It does.”

“Is this the key container which was taken from Vera Martel’s automobile?”

“It is.”

“Cross-examine,” Deering said to Mason.

Mason shook his head. “No questions.”

“Call Jonathan Blair,” Deering said.

Jonathan Blair qualified himself as a technical criminological expert for the sheriff’s office.

“Did you make a microscopic examination of the clothing and of the body of Vera Martel?” Deering asked.

“I did.”

“Specifically, what did you find in the way of unusual foreign bodies?”

“I found bits of sawdust adhering to the skirt, to the top of one of the stockings and in both of the shoes.”

“Can you describe this sawdust?”

“The sawdust,” Blair said, “came from various types of wood. There was satinwood, sandalwood, a rare type of mahogany, myrtlewood and fragments of mahogany which had been stained a deep red.”

“Was this a varnish or oil?” Deering asked.

“It was neither. It was a dye which had been made to impregnate the wood.”

“Did you make any attempt to trace this particular wood?”

“I did. I was given samples of mahogany which had been similarly treated by a dealer named Carlos Barbara. I compared samples of wood which he gave me with some of the particles of sawdust and was able to make a spectroscopic analysis showing that the dye used in both specimens was identical.”