Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Careless Kitten

“Yes. I think we could have found Franklin Shore.”

“And I am accused of keeping you from getting in touch with Lunk?”

“Exactly.”

Mason said, “I’ll puncture that theory right now. The first thing I did with Lunk was to take him down to the hospital to see Matilda Shore. That was where he wanted to go. But... and get this point straight, Burger, because it’s legally important — in place of trying to keep away from the police, I took him to the hospital knowing the police were guarding Matilda Shore, I told the police guards who Lunk was. I told them that he wanted to see Mrs. Shore, that he might have some important evidence, and that Tragg might want to see him. What more can anyone ask?”

Burger nodded. “That’s an outstanding example of your cleverness, Mason. As far as Lunk is concerned, that one very clever move virtually gives you immunity from any prosecution. You could make that stand up in front of a jury. And yet you know, and I know, that you deliberately staged that entire visit so that the guards would eject you and the man with you. You did it simply to give yourself a legal insurance policy.”

Mason grinned. “I can’t help it if you fill up your police force with morons. I took Lunk there, and told them who he was. They pushed him back in the elevator, told him to get out and stay out.”

“I understand,” Burger said patiently. “Now let me call your attention to something. Under our law, any person who willfully prevents or dissuades a person who is, or who may become a witness, from attending upon any inquiry authorized by law is guilty of a misdemeanor.”

Mason nodded.

“And, under another law, if any person gives or promises to give such a witness a bribe to keep him away, he’s guilty of a felony.”

“Go right ahead,” Mason said. “I’m interested in your theory.”

“Under the decisions,” Burger said, “it isn’t necessary that this attempt should be successful. Nor does the witness have to be actually kidnaped. It’s been held in one of our sister states that it’s a crime within the meaning of a similar law to get a witness intoxicated so he couldn’t testify.”

Mason said, “Well, I didn’t bribe anyone, and I didn’t get anyone intoxicated. What’s all the shooting about?”

Burger said, “Lunk adopts a sullen, defiant attitude toward the police, and won’t tell us what he knows. However, he isn’t too intelligent. Once you understand his peculiar psychology and take the time to work with him, it’s possible to get a story out of him — a bit at a time.”

“Well?”

“Lunk has told us enough so that we know Franklin Shore was at his house, that your secretary went out and picked him up. Tragg had told you specifically he wanted Franklin Shore as a witness to appear before the grand jury.”

Mason said, “Go ahead and finish what you have to say, and then I’ll tell you how I feel about it.”

“You want the last word, eh?”

Mason nodded.

Burger said, “Mason, I’m going to hit you where it hurts, and I’m going to hit you hard.”

“By picking on my secretary, I suppose?”

Burger said, “You got her into this. I didn’t. You kept Lunk tied up while she jumped in a cab and went to Lunk’s residence, got Franklin Shore out of bed, told him that he had to get out, and made arrangements to conceal him.”

“You can prove all this, I presume?”

“I can prove it by circumstantial evidence. You know very well, Mason, that you wanted to talk with Franklin Shore before the police did. You sent your secretary out there to pick up Franklin Shore and conceal him.”

“Does she admit that?”

“No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t have to admit it. We’ve got the evidence to prove it.”

“When you say prove, what do you mean?”

“I mean to the satisfaction of a jury.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s circumstantial evidence,” Burger said, “but we have it.”

“You’ve got it like I’ve got the Hope diamond!” Mason said insultingly.

Hamilton Burger met his eyes unflinchingly. “I’ve sympathized with some of the things you’ve done in times past, Mason. I have been so intrigued by your rapid-fire methods and the results you have achieved that I haven’t realized that as far as justice was concerned the viciousness of those methods more than offsets the benefits achieved. Now then, I’m going to pull your house of cards down.”

“How?”

“I’m going to convict your secretary of spiriting off a material witness in a murder case. After that, I’m going to try you as an accessory and I am going to convict you. Then I am going to have you disbarred on the strength of those convictions. Now, you probably have a writ of habeas corpus in your pocket that you’ve been preparing to slap down on my desk as your last word. Go ahead and slap it. I have no desire to be unduly harsh with Miss Street. I am proceeding against her because that’s the only way I can get at you. I don’t intend to confine Miss Street in jail. I am perfectly willing to let you have a writ of habeas corpus . I am perfectly willing to see that she is admitted to bail. I am, however, going to convict her of a crime. If she wants to apply for probation, that’s all right. I won’t stand in her way. Then I am going to convict you of a crime. I am not going to ask for a jail sentence. I am going to see that a fine is imposed, and then I am going to use that conviction to terminate your activities as a member of the Bar.”

Burger pushed back his swivel chair and got to his feet. “Now then, that last word that you were talking about — that business of slapping the writ of habeas corpus on my desk, loses some of its dramatic punch, doesn’t it, Mason?”

Mason also got to his feet, stared across the desk at the district attorney. “All right, I told you I was going to have the last word. Now I’ll have it.

“Burger, the trouble with you is that you’ve hypnotized yourself by looking at law entirely from the viewpoint of a district attorney. District attorneys have organized themselves and they’ve organized public sentiment. You have gradually lulled the public into a feeling of confidence that it can trust you to see that no innocent person is ever knowingly prosecuted.”

Hamilton Burger said, “I am glad to hear you admit that, Mason.”

“You shouldn’t be. You should be sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because the public has sat idly by and let the organized prosecutors amend the law until the constitutional guarantees of the public were swept away. We’re living in a period of changing times. It’s quite possible that the definition of crime will be broadened to include things which we might at present list in the category of political crimes. When the ordinary citizen is dragged into court, he’ll find that the cards have been stacked against him. Ostensibly, they were stacked against the professional criminal by organized public servants, but actually they’ve been stacked against Mr. and Mrs. Ordinary Citizen, because the whole legal procedure has been completely undermined.

“It’s high time for citizens to wake up to the fact that it isn’t a question of whether a man is guilty or innocent, but whether his guilt or innocence can be proved under a procedure which leaves in the citizen the legal rights to which he is entitled under a constitutional government.

“You object to spectacular, dramatic methods of defense. You overlook the fact that for the past twenty-five years you have beguiled the public into releasing its constitutional rights so that the only effective methods of defense which are left are the spectacular and the dramatic. Now then, Mr. District Attorney, you go ahead and arrest Della Street, and we’ll thrash this thing out in a courtroom.”