Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lonely Heiress

Mason said, “It’s a temptation, Della.”

“Well, why not?” she asked.

“Several reasons,” Mason said. “One of them is that the police have undoubtedly photographed everything in the apartment. The other one is that they may have a guard on the job.”

“If they’ve completed their photography and map-making, wouldn’t they simply lock the flat up and leave?”

Mason said, “They’re a little short-handed on the police force. There’s a very good chance that such is the case.”

“Well?” Della Street asked, smiling.

Mason grinned. “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

He continued to tap the key on the table.

Della Street refilled the coffee cups.

Mason said, almost wistfully, “It’s a lot of fun to yield to temptation, Della.”

“Isn’t it!”

“Once this damned idea has got in my mind, I can’t seem to think of anything else.”

“Just what could we do?”

“We couldn’t,” Mason said. “It’s something I’d have to do by myself, a chance I’d have to take...”

Della Street firmly shook her head.

“No need of both of us getting in a mess,” Mason said hastily. “In case something should go wrong, I’d need you to run the office.”

She said, “If we did get caught, we could say that we were just looking for evidence.”

“Yes, we could say that.”

“And we might get away with it.”

“We might."

“What’s the worst thing against Marilyn Marlow, Chief?”

“It’s hard to tell which is the worst,” Mason said. “If Tragg has a knife found in Marilyn’s possession, he’ll claim that’s the murder weapon and that, of course, will be the worst thing that could happen. I think he’s found a knife that could be it, but I don’t think he can prove it’s the murder weapon. However, Marilyn’s whole story is so utterly implausible. Here was Rose Keeling packing her suitcases, ready to leave town. She had written Marilyn Marlow, telling her that the will was no good. She had given Ralph Endicott a check for conscience money — the first installment of bribe money she had received. Of course, I’d take that with a grain of salt, Della. I think that it wasn’t entirely a matter of conscience. I think Ralph Endicott made some promises, but I don’t know how we’re going to bring that out. The fact remains the girl was packing her suitcases, ready to leave town. Yet Marilyn wants people to believe Rose told her that she wanted to go play tennis.”

Mason was thoughtfully silent over his coffee.

Suddenly Della Street said, “Gosh, Chief, I’ve got an idea. If — it’s so simple that it would be a cinch, and so daring it scares me.”

Mason cocked an eyebrow in her direction.

“Look,” Della Street said, the excitement making her voice run the words together, “how do we know she was packing? Everyone takes it for granted she was packing because the clothes were neatly folded and were in the suitcase and on the top of the bureau. But suppose that when it comes to a showdown, we can show that she was un packing?”

Mason frowned thoughtfully, then his face broke into a smile. “Darling!”

“Just a few little things here and there,” Della Street went on. “Clues that would naturally have escaped the untutored, male eyes of the blundering cops, but things that you could bring out in front of a jury, things that would really mean something, particularly if we have some women members on the jury.”

“We’ll get the women on the jury,” Mason said. “But how are we going to find these little things that will make it appear she was unpacking instead of packing?”

Della Street said, “You leave that to me,” and made a run for her bedroom, emerging presently with a fur coat, and a jaunty hat perched on one side of her head.

“What’s holding us back?” she asked.

Mason said, “My damn conservative disposition.”

“I was afraid of that,” she told him.

Mason got to his feet, took Della Street into his arms and kissed her. She laughed up at him, and he said, “Why it is your feminine charms are never so alluring as when you’ve thought of some piece of skulduggery?”

“It’s a subject we can discuss later,” she said. “Right now we have work to do. Suppose Tragg’s having the place watched?”

“That’s what we’ll have to find out.”

“And if we get caught?”

“We’re just looking for evidence — and if Tragg doesn’t believe that, your feminine charms will have to go to work again,” Mason replied.

“On Tragg? Let’s not get caught,” Della Street said.

Mason drove his car slowly past the four-flat house.

“Take a good look, Della.”

“I’m looking.”

“All dark?”

“Dark as the inside of a pocket.”

“We’ll drive around the block,” Mason said, “and look for a police car. There’s a chance a guard might be sleeping inside the flat. If so, he’ll have a car parked around here somewhere.”

They cruised slowly around the block, watching the license numbers of the parked cars.

“See anything official?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “I think we’re in the clear, Della. We’ll circle around a couple more blocks, just to make sure.”

“How strong are we going to go after we get in?” she asked.

Mason said, “Just strong enough to rattle these birds on cross-examination and drive home a point to the jury. When you come right down to it, Della, no one knows whether Rose Keeling was packing to leave town or whether she had been planning on leaving town and was unpacking the suitcases when she was murdered.

“When the trial starts, the D.A. will put Lieutenant Tragg on the stand and ask him what he found when he discovered the body. Tragg will state that he found the body nude, sprawled on the floor in front of the bathroom door with the feet toward the bathroom, the air in the bathroom still steamy, the temperature of the tub warmer than that of the surrounding air, indicating that she had been taking a bath; that he’d found clothes on the bed and all that, and then he’ll go on to state that there were two suitcases open and that she had been packing those suitcases.

“You can leave it to Tragg to slip that in very skillfully before anyone can make an objection. Then I’ll move to strike out the statement that she was packing, on the ground that that was a conclusion of the witness, and the D.A. will say wearily, ‘Oh, yes, that can go out if you insist that it’s a conclusion, Mr. Mason.’ And then he’ll turn to Tragg with a superior smile and say, ‘Just what did you find, Lieutenant? Since Mr. Mason objects to having you say that the girl was packing, just what did you find?’

“And then Tragg will say, ‘I found two suitcases in front of the dresser. There were some folded clothes on the dresser. The fold on the clothes was of exactly the right dimension to enable them to fit into the suitcase when they were placed on top of the clothes already in there. The suitcases contained articles of feminine clothing which we have identified as having belonged to Rose Keeling in her lifetime.’ ”

“Then what?” Della Street asked.

“Then,” Mason said, “the District Attorney will turn to the jury with something of a smirk, as much as to say, ‘You see what a technical chap this Mason is and how he’s trying to resort to all kinds of technicalities in order to keep his client from being convicted.’ Those are little tricks of courtroom technique but they can be used to put a defense attorney at a disadvantage.”

“And after we get in the flat? Then what?”

“Then,” Mason said, “after we get in the flat, we’ll know a lot more than we do now. We’ll let Tragg slip in the statement that she had been packing her suitcases at the time of her death, and make no objection to it. But when we start our cross-examination, we’ll say, ‘Lieutenant, your assumption was that this woman had been packing. How do you know she was packing? How do you know she wasn’t un packing?’ And Tragg will sarcastically say, ‘She hadn’t been any place, had she? Or do you claim she kept her clothes in her suitcases and then once a week or so she put them in the bureau drawers just to give them a treat?’ And then the judge will frown, the jury smile, and the people in the courtroom laugh.