Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Crooked Candle

“Late Friday afternoon, about four forty-five, and also Saturday.”

“There were some people occupying the two cottages with you?”

“Yes.”

“Who were they?”

“Some of my associates — a driller and a geologist of my own, a man who gives me some financial backing at times, and another man who has an interest in my business.”

“You had been investigating the Skinner Hills oil field?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know that it was an oil field?”

“Well,” Lassing said, scratching his head, “I did know it, and I didn’t. I just happened to stumble onto it. I saw that Milfield and Burbank were getting together and buying up a lot of property. Well, us oil men sort of keep an eye on any large-scale movements in potential oil properties. They’d organized a Karakul Fur Company, but that didn’t fool me any.”

“So you went out and looked the ground over?” Burger asked.

“Yes.”

Burger said. “Now then, Mr. Lassing, I’m going to ask you a question. Did you have any conversation with one of the defendants concerning your occupancy of the Surf and Sun Motel some time after you had checked out?”

Lassing fidgeted, then said, “Yes.”

“With whom?”

“Carol Burbank.”

“What did you say?”

“I take it,” Judge Newark said, “the district attorney understands this question is not to call for extraneous matters, but only for some declaration which will have some bearing upon the case?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Answer the question.”

“Well,” Lassing said, “she asked me if I’d say that — well, if I’d just refuse to give the names of the people who occupied the cottages with me, just make it look as though I had something to conceal — just not give out any information about who they were.”

“And what did you do?”

“Well, I told her all right, I’d do that.”

“Is this,” Mason asked somewhat scornfully, “the grounds upon which you’re going to claim a subornation of perjury?”

“Yes,” Burger snapped.

Mason smiled, “She didn’t ask him to commit any perjury.”

“I think she did,” Burger said.

“Never mind the discussion between counsel,” the judge ruled. “Go ahead with your examination, Mr. Burger.”

“That’s all.”

“Any questions on cross-examination, Mr. Mason?”

Mason smiled, said, “Yes, Your Honor. Mr. Lassing, I will ask you if Carol Burbank, at any time, asked you to testify to anything that was false?”

“Well, no.”

“Did she ask you to make any statements whatever that were false in character?”

“Well, she asked me to just keep quiet.”

“Exactly. She asked you to keep quiet. She didn’t ask you not to make a true statement in the event you were called as a witness?”

“Well, no.”

“But just to keep quiet, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Not to divulge the names of the persons who occupied those cabins with you?”

“That’s right.”

“She specifically asked you to say her father was not there, didn’t she?”

“Why no.”

“She asked you not to mention the names of any person as having been in that motel with you, didn’t she? Or did I understand your testimony correctly?”

“That’s right. Yes sir.”

“And in your opinion any person would include her father?”

“Oh, I see what you’re getting at now! Well, she asked me to refuse to tell the name of any person who was there — to act as secretive as I could about the whole business.”

“Asked you to refuse to say her father was there?”

“To refuse to mention the name of anyone who was there.”

“To refuse to say her father was there?”

“Well, if you want to put it that way — I was to refuse to give out any name — any name at all.”

“To refuse to say her father was there?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all, Mr. Lassing. Thank you.”

Mason smiled triumphantly, looked over at the prosecutor’s table and said, “If that’s suborning perjury, I’ll eat it.”

Lassing left the witness stand.

“It certainly shows an attempt on the part of the defendant, Carol Burbank, to give her father some sort of a fictitious alibi,” the district attorney stormed.

“The witness didn’t say she asked him to declare her father was present. You can’t prove an alibi unless you swear someone was there. She asked him to refuse to say her father was there.”

“Well, even so, she wanted us to assume that her father was present.”

“Whatever one wants the district attorney’s office to assume,” Mason said, “is purely a personal and private matter. That’s certainly a far cry from suborning perjury.”

“I’m not going to bicker with Counsel,” Burger lashed out. “I’ll prove it before I’m done. I now want to recall Lieutenant Tragg to the stand. If the Court please, I used him only for the purpose of proving the corpus delicti in connection with the first part of his testimony.”

“Very well,” the court ruled.

Tragg returned to the witness stand.

“Did you,” Burger asked, “have any conversation on Saturday, the day the body of Fred Milfield was discovered, with Carol Burbank?”

“Yes.”

“Where did this conversation take place?”

“In a restaurant known, I believe, as the ‘Dobe Hut,’ between Los Angeles and Calabasas.”

“And who was present at that conversation?”

“Mr. Roger Burbank, one of the defendants, and George Avon of the Los Angeles police.”

“And what was said at that time?”

“The defendant, Carol Burbank, stated that her father had been attending a political conference; that under the circumstances he should no longer try to keep that conference a secret, but should tell us where he was and what transpired.”

“Did she say that conference took place at the Surf and Sun Motel?”

“Well,” Tragg said, “she implied it.”

“Can you remember her exact language?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t. I was more interested in Roger Burbank at the time.”

“Did Roger Burbank make any statement with reference to that?”

“He put his hand down in his pocket and took out a key to Cabin Fourteen at the Surf and Sun Motel.”

“And did he tell you he had stayed there?”

“Well, he certainly intimated that he had.”

“That,” Mason announced, “is a conclusion of the witness and should be stricken on that ground.”

“I think so,” the court ruled. “This witness is a police officer and he should be able to tell exactly what the defendant said.”

“Well,” Tragg said smiling, “he put his hand down into his pocket, took out a key to Cottage Fourteen at this motel, and handed that key to me.”

“And did the defendant, Roger Burbank, thereafter accompany you to the Surf and Sun Motel and identify a razor of his which was found?”

“He did.”

“And did Carol Burbank tell you that her father’s razor was to be found in Cottage Fourteen of the Surf and Sun Motel?”

“She did.”

“You may cross-examine,” Burger said.

Mason’s smile was suave. “Carol Burbank told you her father’s razor was there?”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you that her father had been there?”

“Well, I can’t remember that she said so, in so many words, but she inferred it.”

“You mean that you inferred it from the fact that his razor was there?”

“Well, in a way, yes. If you’re going to put it in just that way.”

Mason smiled. “I want to put it in just that way. Now then, she told you that her father’s razor was there.”

“Yes.”

“And did the defendant, Roger Burbank, tell you his razor was there?”