Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Reluctant Model

“Well?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “There’s something very strange here. I’m going to try and get that picture in evidence. Once I get it in evidence I’m going to make scrambled eggs out of the district attorney’s case; at least I’m going to try to.”

“And Paul Drake is busy serving subpoenas?” Della Street asked.

“Paul Drake is busy with subpoenas,” Mason said, “and the first thing you know all hell is going to break loose. Olney is going to be calling the judge and saying he doesn’t want to be a witness, and that he doesn’t know anything about the case, and he’ll have his lawyers bustling into court claiming that I’ve abused the process of the court, and, by the time we get done, we’ll have a three-ring circus around here.”

“And what will the judge do?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “Unless I can pull a great big, fat, kicking rabbit out of the hat, the judge is going to bind Maxine over, but I can’t back up now. If I did, everyone would think that I found out Maxine was guilty during the recess, that she confessed to me or something, and I didn’t dare to go ahead. That would be highly detrimental to her when the case comes on for trial in front of a jury. I’m just going to tear in and thrust and slash and kick up such a hell of a commotion nobody will know who is accusing whom of what.”

“And what will the prosecution be doing all of that time?”

“The prosecution,” Mason said, “will be almost certain to have our esteemed contemporary, Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, attending the balance of the trial in person so that he can enjoy my discomfiture when I put the defendant on the stand and throw my case out the window.

“Hamilton Burger will be the one to take the credit for forcing me to commit a legal error.”

“He’s clever,” Della Street warned.

“I know he’s clever,” Mason said, “but I jumped in my boat and pushed it out into the middle of the stream. I’m just above the rapids now. I’ve either got to shoot them, or capsize. I can’t turn around and go back, and if I should try to, it would be much worse than being capsized once I got in the rapids. The only thing to do now is to keep on paddling downstream, pretending to be confident that I know a channel among the rocks.”

Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, was personally present when court reconvened. He was seated beside his trial deputy, his manner indicating very plainly that he felt Perry Mason had blundered, and the district attorney, who had long been feuding with the defense lawyer, intended to be there in person to take full advantage of the opening Mason had given.

“I call Maxine Lindsay to the stand,” Mason said. “Just go up there and hold up your right hand, Maxine. And,” he added, “tell the truth.”

“No need of the grandstand,” Hamilton Burger said. “There’s no jury here.”

Judge Madison smiled but said quietly, “I would like to have counsel refrain from personalities, please.”

Mason said, “Maxine, you remember the night of the thirteenth?”

“Very well,” she said.

“You knew Collin Durant in his lifetime?”

“Yes.”

“How long had you known him?”

“Some— I can’t remember. Three or four years.”

“Were you friendly with him?”

“I had been friendly with him and — well, I knew him. I did things for him.”

“Now,” Mason said, “I want you to listen to my questions very carefully, Maxine, and answer the questions without volunteering information.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you acquainted with Otto Olney?”

“I am.”

“Were you present on his yacht at a time when you had a conversation with Mr. Durant about one of Mr. Olney’s paintings?”

“Yes.”

“And what did Mr. Durant say?”

Judge Madison pursed his lips. “We’re now getting into a realm where—”

Hamilton Burger jumped to his feet. “If the Court please,” he said, “we are not making any objection. We want Mr. Mason to go right ahead. Every subject that he opens up gives us a new gambit for cross-examination. We don’t intend to object to any question he may ask.”

“I can appreciate the attitude of the district attorney,” Judge Madison said, “but after all, this Court has a crowded calendar... However, there being no objection, I’ll let the question stand.”

“Can you tell us what happened with reference to one of the paintings?” Mason asked.

“Mr. Durant came to me and told me that a painting Mr. Olney had on his yacht, a painting supposedly by Phellipe Feteet, was a fake. Later on he told me to report that conversation to Mr. Rankin.”

“And who is Mr. Rankin?”

“That is Lattimer Rankin, an art dealer. He was, I believe, the art dealer who had sold Mr. Olney the picture.”

“And what did Mr. Durant tell you about this picture?”

“He said in effect that I was to tell Mr. Rankin that he, Durant, had pronounced the picture a fake and that it was a fraud.”

“That was a painting of some women under a tree?”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “I am going to show you a picture which was marked for identification and ask you if that is the same picture.”

Judge Madison looked at Hamilton Burger. “No objection,” Hamilton Burger said, beaming. “We want counsel to have all the rope he wants to take.”

Judge Madison pointed out, “This probably will lay the foundation for the introduction of that picture in evidence.”

“If he wants to put the defendant on the stand in order to get it in, let him put it in,” Hamilton Burger said. “Let him put in anything he wants, let him open all doors for our cross-examination.”

“Very well,” Judge Madison said crisply.

Mason said, “I’ll put it this way, Maxine. I’m going to show you a picture which was marked for identification. You saw that picture at the time it was brought into court?”

“I did.”

“Now, listen to the question carefully, Maxine. Is that picture, that painting which I now show you and which has been marked tentatively for identification as Defendant’s Exhibit Number One, is that the painting, the one Mr. Durant pointed out to you, and which he told you to tell Mr. Rankin was a forgery?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you answer the question any better than that?”

“I’ll say this, it is a painting that is absolutely similar. If it isn’t the same one that was hanging there, it looks like the same one.”

“Now, on the night of the thirteenth did you have any further conversation with Mr. Durant?”

“I did.”

“At what time?”

“At about six o’clock in the evening.”

“And what did Mr. Durant tell you at that time?”

“Mr. Durant told me to get out of town, fast, and not to leave any trail — not to stop to take anything with me, just to get out.”

“When did he tell you to leave?”

“Within an hour. He said I couldn’t be in my apartment any later than that.”

“Did you have any conversation about money?”

“I told him that I didn’t have enough money to travel and he said that he would try to get me some money. He said I was to wait an hour for him to return, that if he could raise some money for me he would do so; that if he couldn’t, I would have to get along as best I could, even if I had to hitchhike or wire my sister for money.”

“You have a married sister living in Eugene, Oregon?”

“I do.”

“Did you report to Mr. Durant that you had told Mr. Rankin that the picture in Otto Olney’s yacht, in the main salon of that yacht, the picture purporting to be by Phellipe Feteet, was a fake?”

“Yes.”