Эрл Гарднер - Case of the Cautious Coquette

“Yes, I guess so.”

“So she told you the truth — finally?”

“Yes.”

“So then you set about helping her?”

“I did not!”

“But you’ve already said you told her you couldn’t help her unless she told the truth, and that because of your promise she ‘finally admitted’ the truth. Now am I to understand you then failed to fulfill your part of the bargain?”

Barton hesitated, crossed his legs, glanced pleadingly at Burger.

“Well?” Mason demanded.

“I didn’t help her,” Barton blurted.

“That’s what I thought,” Mason said scornfully. “That’s all, Mr. Barton.”

Barton came down off the witness stand, swung over toward Mason’s table, caught the cold, stony glint of the lawyer’s eyes, thought better of what he had in mind, and veered away.

“Call Arthur Colson,” Burger said, ignoring Barton.

Arthur Colson marched to the witness stand. His eyes moved restlessly around, appraising the courtroom, carefully avoiding, however, the eyes of the district attorney and the table behind which Mason and Lucille Barton sat.

He gave his name, age, occupation, and residence.

Hamilton Burger produced the gun. “I show you a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, Number S65088, and ask you if you ever saw that gun before?”

Colson took a sheet of paper from his pocket and reading from it, said, “I refuse to answer that question upon the ground that the answer might tend to incriminate me.”

“Did you buy that gun from the Rushing Creek Mercantile Company?”

“I refuse to answer on the ground that the answer might tend to incriminate me.”

“Did you sign the name Ross P. Hollister on the register?”

“I refuse to answer, same ground.”

“Did you kill Hartwell L. Pitkin?”

“No.”

“Did you know him?”

“No, sir. I didn’t know him.”

“Did you place this gun by the body of Hartwell L. Pitkin in the garage at number 719 South Gondola on the fifth of this month?”

“No, sir.”

“Or at any other time?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s all,” Hamilton Burger said.

“Just a minute,” Mason said. “One more question on cross-examination. Did you ever have this gun in your possession?”

“I refuse to answer on the ground that the answer might incriminate me.”

“Did you ever take it when Lucille Barton didn’t know you had taken it?”

“I refuse to answer on the ground that the answer might incriminate me.”

“Did you ever have a key to Lucille Barton’s apartment?”

“No, sir.”

Mason said, “I show you two letters, both typewritten, one of them addressed to the Drake Detective Agency, the other addressed to me. The first letter refers to a key to the apartment of Lucille Barton. The second letter refers to a key to the desk of that apartment. I ask you if you wrote either of those letters.”

“No, sir. I did not.”

“That’s all,” Mason said.

“That’s all,” Burger announced.

Judge Osborn said, “In view of the very unsatisfactory answers given upon such a vital point by this witness, the Court feels that the district attorney’s office should take steps to clarify the situation.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Burger said, wearily. “We are fully aware of the possibilities.”

“And the implications,” Judge Osborn said.

“And the implications,” Burger repeated.

“Very well,” Judge Osborn said. “Do you have one more witness you wish to put on before the hour of adjournment?”

“If the Court please, Your Honor, I’d like to wait until...”

“Very well. Court will now take a recess until two o’clock this afternoon. The defendant is remanded to the custody of the sheriff. Witnesses under subpoena are instructed to return here at two o’clock this afternoon.”

As the spectators arose to leave the courtroom, Mason beckoned Paul Drake over to him. “Afraid I can’t join you for lunch, Paul.”

“Why, Perry?”

“I’m going to have to spend a couple of hours on the telephone. You take Della to lunch and get her a nice steak.”

“Have a heart,” Drake protested, grinning.

“I have,” Mason told him, “and it’s been in my mouth so long that I won’t feel right when it drops back to where it belongs.”

At two o’clock when court reconvened, Hamilton Burger, apparently worried, said, “Your Honor, a peculiar situation has developed in this case. I had every reason to believe that it would be possible to connect this murder weapon with Mr. Perry Mason by reason of his fingerprint, and with the defendant by reason of the fact that I expected to be able to show Mr. Mason was with her at the garage at about the hour the man must have been murdered. That identification evidence has been made a football because of certain ingenious legal trickery, but I want to call to the Court’s attention that it is merely an ingenious legal trickery. The witness ordinarily would have made an absolute identification.”

“Well, of course,” Judge Osborn said, “that’s the vice of identification evidence. The witness saw a tall man wearing a light tan topcoat and a gray hat. He didn’t see the man’s face except vaguely and at a distance. A great number of men would answer that description. The description of the woman, because of the identification of her wearing apparel, which is more unusual, is, of course, much more persuasive; but there were probably thousands of tall men wearing light topcoats in the city at the hour the witness, Goshen, saw the couple at the garage.”

“But there’s only one Perry Mason who could have left a fingerprint on the inside of that gun belonging to his client,” Burger said.

“You haven’t proved the weapon belonged to his client yet,” Judge Osborn said.

Hamilton Burger said, “I admit, Your Honor, the case has become somewhat complicated, but if the Court will bear with me I think the Court should appreciate the trickery by which the identification witness was confused.”

Judge Osborn smiled. “The Court will bear with you as long as you’re putting on proof, Mr. Burger.”

“Very well. Call Sadie Milford.”

Sadie Milford, a well-upholstered woman in the early forties proved to be the manager of the apartment house where Lucille Barton had her apartment. She testified that the garages went with the apartments. That they were kept locked. That the apartment at 208 was entitled to a garage. That duplicate keys to the apartment and to the garage had been given Lucille Barton when she moved in.

“Who had these keys?”

“Lucille Barton.”

“Do you have any receipt showing that to be the case?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was that signed by Lucille Barton?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In your presence?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want it introduced in evidence,” Hamilton Burger said.

“No objection,” Mason said.

“Do you care to cross-examine?”

“Yes.”

Mason took the receipt, said, “And you did deliver Lucille Barton these four keys, two to the apartment, and two to the garage?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “That’s all.”

Burger’s next witness was a service-station operator who testified that at a little after six o’clock on the evening of the fifth Lucille Barton had driven her automobile into the service station. It was a Chevrolet sedan with a light brown body. He had found the timing so out of adjustment that the car constantly skipped and backfired. He had changed the adjustment of the timing device, and while with the time and the tools available he hadn’t been able to make a thoroughly workmanlike job of it, he had smoothed the car out so that it ran without backfiring.