Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Duplicate Daughter

“That’s better,” Mason said. “Get positive about it. Now then, you go get on the phone and get Cartman Jasper all set up in your office. I’m going to keep Della Street and Nancy Gilman waiting until I know that you’re all ready to give a lie-detector test. Then I’m going to go to my office, try to cross-examine Nancy into telling me the truth, and then we’re going to spring a lie detector on her.”

“What’s the truth?” Drake asked.

“The truth,” Mason said, “is that she must have known Vera Martel.”

“And Vera Martel was blackmailing her over something in her past?” Drake asked.

“It must have been some sort of a new angle on blackmail,” Mason said. “Burger is maneuvering for position, trying to get us out on a limb. However, as Judge Alvord has pointed out, they’ve made a prima-facie case against Carter Gilman long ago and he is going to get bound over for murder unless we can dope this thing out within the next few hours, find out exactly what did happen and prove that he’s innocent.”

“You can never prove he’s innocent in the face of this evidence,” Drake said. “Hell’s bells, the minute he went up to that locksmith with the impression of keys to Vera Martel’s apartment and offices he was licked. The evidence of the sawdust is bad enough, but that key business has him so far behind the eight ball even you can’t get him out.”

“I know,” Mason said, “but there’s one person who can get him out.”

“Who?”

“Hamilton Burger.”

“Are you crazy?” Drake asked.

Mason shook his head. “Hamilton Burger is so eager to get a case built up where he’ll have two of my clients so firmly enmeshed in a fabric of falsehood that they can never get clear, that he’s losing sight of the fact Judge Alvord is going to upset his apple cart if he falls down on any element of the case.”

“What element is he going to fall down on?”

“Glamis Barlow breaking into Vera Martel’s office.”

“Oh, look, Perry,” Drake said. “That’s simply a question of a mistake in the time element. Either McCoy or I was mistaken on the time.”

“You don’t sound too damn positive,” Mason said.

“I’m positive, all right,” Drake said, “but it’s easy to make a mistake in the time. You put too much stress on this time element and McCoy will weaken on the witness stand and say, ‘Well, I thought it was nine fifteen but I might have heard wrong. I guess it could have been ten fifteen.’ ”

Mason said, “ You be certain that you don’t weaken on the time element because I think we’re on the trail of something.”

“On the trail of what?”

“I wish I knew,” Mason said. “Get busy and get Cartman Jasper up there in your office. If you can’t get him, get someone else that’s good, but have someone there just as fast as he can get in and get a polygraph set up.”

“They like to do that polygraph work in their own offices,” Drake said. “They’re all equipped for it and—”

“I know, I know,” Mason interrupted impatiently. “It isn’t what they like in this case, it’s what I like. They have portable lie detectors that they can bring in and set up, and if Nancy is a good reactor we can find out a lot within fifteen minutes after we start running her on the machine.”

“Okay,” Drake said, “I’ll get Jasper.”

Mason looked at his watch. “I’m going to give Della Street about a fifteen-minute head start,” he said. “I think she can hold Nancy there that long and by that time Nancy is going to be just a little apprehensive.”

“And then you come in?” Drake asked.

“Then I come in,” Mason said.

“Okay,” Drake told him. “I’ll get hold of Jasper. I’m quite certain I can reach him. We’ll be ready whenever you come in.”

Mason latchkeyed the door of his private office to find Nancy Gilman plainly impatient and Della Street desperately trying to hold her.

As Mason opened the door Nancy Gilman was on her feet and apparently headed for the exit door.

Della Street, however, between her and the exit door, was saying, “I’m sure he’ll be here any minute and it’s quite important, Mrs. Gilman. He—”

Mason said, “Hello, everybody. Sit down, Mrs. Gilman. I have a few questions.”

Nancy Gilman gave him the benefit of her super-magnetic smile, then suddenly her mouth was firm. “I have a few questions myself, Mr. Mason,” she said.

“What are they?” Mason asked, making a surreptitious motion with his wristwatch to Della, indicating that he was stalling for time.

“I am not going to have Glamis shut up in jail like a common felon simply because they want her as a witness,” she said. “Isn’t there some procedure by which she can put up bail and be released?”

“Quite definitely,” Mason said cheerfully.

“Well, why don’t we do that?”

“Because at the present time I don’t want to get in the position of representing both her and your husband.”

“Then we’ll get some other attorney to represent her,” Mrs. Gilman said decisively.

“Exactly,” Mason said. “That’s one of the things I want to talk to you about. I want you to get a lawyer for her.”

“I think this case has been a farce as far as justice is concerned,” Nancy said. “Here is Hartley Elliott, a man of the highest moral character, a young man whose only fault was being loyal to his friends, thrown into jail for contempt of court. Here is Glamis, a young woman of refinement and delicacy thrown into a cell with hardened prostitutes and exposed to all sorts of indignities simply because the district attorney wants to have her as a witness.”

“Listen,” Mason said, “let me tell you something about the facts of life, Mrs. Gilman. You can get an attorney who can get Glamis Barlow released on bail without the slightest difficulty. You don’t even need to call it bail. You put up a bond for her appearance as a witness and the court lets her out.”

“Well, why don’t we do it?” Nancy asked. “Why haven’t you made arrangements to do it, Mr. Mason? Even if you couldn’t represent both Glamis and Carter you could at least have arranged for some other attorney.”

“Because,” Mason said, “the minute she puts up a bond and steps out of custody as a material witness she’ll be arrested as a codefendant. She’ll then be charged with being an accessory after the fact in the murder or she’ll be charged as a codefendant in the murder. Then Hamilton Burger will file a joint information against Glamis and your husband and try them both for the murder of Vera Martel.

“And once she’s arrested for murder she can’t get out on bail. Once she’s arrested for murder, Hamilton Burger simply has to go through with the case, to save his face if for no other reason. Once she’s arrested for murder she has no sympathy from either the court or the public. But so long as a good-looking girl like Glamis is being held as a material witness at the whim of the district attorney, she has the sympathy of both the court and the public.

“For your information, this way of handling the case is making the judge angry at the prosecutor. “Now then, does that answer your question?”

Nancy Gilman thought that over for a few moments, then when she spoke there was a decided change in her manner.

“I still think it’s the most absurd thing I ever heard of in my life,” Nancy said. “Carter wouldn’t hurt a fly and Glamis has no more idea of what happened than... well, she’s completely innocent.”

“What about those people who were going to testify that they saw her running out of the workshop?”