Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Reluctant Model

“What’s the matter?”

“She’s been lying to you.”

“What about?”

“Well, let’s put it this way, Perry. I don’t know just what she’s told you but I think she’s been lying to you.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“Did she tell you that she was supposed to have had a child out of wedlock, that actually it was her sister’s child, that her sister had been cheating on her husband while he was overseas and that this was her sister’s child?”

“Go on,” Mason said as Drake hesitated.

“Well,” Drake said, “apparently it’s the other way around. The child was Maxine’s but it was agreed between her and the sister that she’d tell this cock-and-bull story about the sister having cheated on her husband. The husband knows all about it and was willing to ride along in order to cover up for Maxine.

“The child was born while the husband was overseas, all right, but it was born to Maxine and not to the sister, Phoebe Stigler. However, Maxine and Phoebe went together down to a small community where they could say they had swapped identities. They had a midwife where the child was born, and subsequently, after a lot of legal hocus-pocus, the child was adopted by Homer and Phoebe Stigler.”

“The police know that?” Mason asked.

“Know it?” Drake said. “Hell’s bells, you haven’t heard anything yet. The father of the child was Collin Max Durant.”

“What!” Mason exclaimed.

“That’s what the police think. They’re trying desperately to get the evidence all lined up.

“I’ll tell you something else. They have a woman who knows that Maxine was in her apartment as late as eight o’clock.”

“She couldn’t have been,” Mason said. “She called you from the bus station at seven-fifteen.”

“She said she was calling from the bus station,” Drake said. “That’s a cheap way to get an alibi. A person goes to a telephone booth, gets the number of the phone in a far-away pay station, calls up someone who isn’t in, then leaves a message saying, ‘I’m at such and such a number. It’s a telephone booth. Please call me back.’ Then after she gets done committing her murder and cleaning up, she goes down to the telephone booth and waits for the call.

“Maxine Lindsay knew she was going to have to take a powder. She removed everything from her apartment that she didn’t want the police to find. She also wanted her canary to have good care so she took it and left it with some very close friend. Then she got in touch with you and told you this grandstand story, gave Della Street the key to her apartment and was on her way.

“She’s using you and she’s using me to help build up an alibi, to confirm her story that she called from the phone booth at the bus depot.”

“How do the police figure Durant was the father of the child?”

“They figure it out on a basis of circumstantial evidence. Durant was hanging around Maxine during that time and they were pretty thick. I guess the police can dig up some registers at motels that are in the handwriting of Collin Durant.”

“Someday,” Mason said, “I’ll get a client who will tell me the truth and the surprise will knock me out. No, wait a minute, I’ll put it another way. Someday we’ll get a client I can believe.”

“I hate to hand you these jolts,” Drake said, “but that’s what you pay me for.”

“What about the hundred-dollar bills?” Mason asked.

“I can’t find them, I can’t find any indication that Durant ever had but one bank account or ever went near any other bank. I’ve had photographs and operatives with photographs calling on every bank in town. No one knows him except the little branch bank where he had an account under his own name. At the time of his death he had a balance of thirty-three dollars and twelve cents.”

“With ten thousand dollars in his pocket,” Mason said.

Drake nodded.

“And a week or so earlier he had hundred-dollar bills that he used to buy painting supplies and pay off the artist. How about other hundred-dollar bills, Paul?”

“Those are the only ones I could find.”

“Keep digging,” Mason said. “Right now you have only started.”

Deputy District Attorney Thomas Albert Dexter got to his feet and said, “May it please the Court, this is the time fixed for the preliminary hearing in the case of the People of the State of California versus Maxine Lindsay. The People are ready.”

“Ready for the defendant,” Mason said.

“Very well,” Judge Crowley Madison said, with a curious and almost sympathetic glance at Maxine, “call your witnesses, Counselor.”

“Call Lieutenant Tragg,” Dexter said.

Lt. Tragg took the stand. He had, he explained, been called by Miss Della Street, or, that is, by someone who said she was Miss Della Street, on the morning of the 14th. He had gone to an apartment, Number 338-B, rented by Maxine Lindsay, the defendant in this case, and had there found Della Street and a body. The body had subsequently been identified as that of Collin Max Durant, an art dealer. The body was lying partially in the shower stall in the bathroom.

“You have photographs?” Dexter asked.

Tragg produced a sheaf of photographs. They were introduced in evidence, one at a time.

Tragg also produced a diagram he had made of the interior of the apartment, and that was introduced in evidence.

“And what was in the pockets of the deceased at the time you found the body, Lieutenant?”

“Some keys, including a key which opened the door of the defendant’s apartment; a handkerchief, a pen knife, a package of cigarettes, a lighter, two fountain pens, a notebook, one hundred one-hundred-dollar bills and about twenty-five dollars in smaller currency and change, making a total of ten thousand and twenty-five dollars.”

“Miss Street made a statement to you at that time?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

Judge Madison said, “This is not the best evidence. It’s hearsay.”

“I know,” Dexter said, “but since Miss Street is the secretary of Mr. Perry Mason, the attorney for the defendant, I thought it might be better to bring the matter to the Court’s attention in this way, particularly if there is no objection from the defense.”

“Is it material?” Judge Madison asked.

“It’s quite material.”

“Is it important?”

“We consider it so.”

“In what way?”

“It tends to contradict the defendant’s subsequent declarations.”

“Very well,” Judge Madison said, “if there is no objection—”

“There is an objection,” Mason said.

“Well,” Judge Madison said irritably, “that would have disposed of the matter without all this running around, if you had interposed the objection at the time the question was asked.”

Mason smiled. “I am objecting at this time.”

“The objection is well taken. It’s sustained,” Judge Madison said, and then added somewhat brusquely, “I recognize your tactics, Counselor. You wanted the district attorney’s office to explain why it considered the conversation important. All right, you have that information now, you’ve made your objection and it’s been sustained.”

“I’ll call Miss Della Street to the stand at this time in order to prove the conversation,” Dexter said, “and withdraw Lieutenant Tragg so that he can finish his testimony later.”

“Well, that’s somewhat irregular,” Judge Madison said, “but I guess it’s all right. However, if Mr. Mason wants to cross-examine the lieutenant on the testimony he’s already given before he leaves the stand, I’ll give him that privilege.”

“I’m quite willing to cross-examine him later,” Mason said.