Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Daring Divorcee

“What do you mean?”

“She was smart enough not to sign the name of any judge to what purported to be a copy of the decree. She simply signed a purely fictitious name. It may be a fraud. I doubt if it is a forgery. There’s no question but what she was guilty of fraud. As between her and Hastings, if Hastings had lived, there would have been an action for fraud. But as between her and her husband’s mistress, the situation is different.

“My client isn’t blameless but, on the other hand, she’s still the wife of Hastings. That is, she’s his widow.”

The phone gave several short, sharp rings — Gertie’s signal of an emergency.

The door from the outer office opened and Lt. Tragg entered the room.

“Well, well, Perry,” he said. “I seem to have caught you busy. Hello, Banner, what are you two doing? Hatching up a plot of some kind?”

Mason said, “Tragg never does me the courtesy of having the receptionist announce him. He always walks right in this way.”

“That’s right,” Tragg said, beaming. “The taxpayers don’t like to have us cooling our heels in some attorney’s office and if you know I’m coming you have a chance to prepare yourself a bit in advance.”

“How much preparation do you think I need?” Mason asked.

“Not very much,” Tragg said. “I came to advise you, Perry, that I’m here to pick up your client.”

“On what charge?”

“Murder, of course,” Tragg said cheerfully. “That gun turned out to be the fatal gun, and we found a fingerprint on it.”

“You don’t get fingerprints from guns,” Mason said. “You, yourself admitted that, Tragg. Moreover the gun was handled by Beason and by his secretary after...”

Tragg was positively beaming. “This isn’t a fingerprint powder would bring out, Perry,” he interrupted, “it’s very unusual. Quite a break, I’d say.”

“Fingerprint of my client?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Tragg said. “We haven’t taken her prints. ‘We’re going to. I’m pretty sure, however, it’s the print of a woman and — that’s quite a break, you know, Perry. I don’t believe there’s one time out of twenty-five that we can get a fingerprint off a gun — I’ll make it one in fifty — and, as I said, this isn’t the usual type of fingerprint. The person who handled it had evidently been eating candy, or handling a type of nail polish or some liquid cement. While the print is dry and powder won’t stick to it, it’s nevertheless visible, and a very workable print.”

“What if I don’t surrender my client?” Mason asked.

“Then we’ll get her,” Tragg said, “and of course we’ll have a point in our favor because we’ll let it be known that we had told her not to leave town, that we’d get in touch with her through you if we wanted her. And now we’ve told you we want her.”

Tragg settled himself comfortably in a chair, smiled at Banner and said, “How are you doing, Banner?”

“Very well,” Banner said, grinning. “Very well indeed!”

Mason nodded to Della Street. “You win, Tragg,” he said. “Get Adelle Hastings on the phone, Della, and tell her to come at once.”

Judge Quincy L. Fallon looked down over the crowded courtroom and said, “This is the time heretofore fixed for the preliminary hearing in the case of the People of the State of California versus Adelle Sterling Hastings. Are you ready?”

Morton Ellis, one of the trial deputies of the district attorney’s office, said, “Ready for the People, Your Honor.”

Mason stood up. “If the Court please, the defendant is ready.”

“Very well,” Judge Fallon said. “Now, I want to make a few comments before we start taking evidence in this case.

“The Court understands from the press that a legal battle is going to be waged for the control of the estate. Minerva Shelton Hastings claims under a will, and Adelle Sterling Hastings, the defendant in this case, claims as the surviving spouse. Both parties have filed petitions which will duly be heard in the probate court.

“Now, this Court doesn’t intend to have this hearing in the criminal case develop into a squabble as to who is entitled to the estate or the management thereof. The sole question to be determined here is whether a crime has been committed and, if so, whether there is reasonable ground to believe the defendant is guilty of that crime. If she is, she will be bound over for trial in the superior court, and if she isn’t, she will be released.

“The Court realizes that it may be necessary to show some of the facts connected with the claims to the estate for the purpose of showing motivation, and quite possibly bias of the witnesses. But the Court wants the evidence concerning control of the estate limited to that purpose. It will serve no particular purpose to try the probate matter here, or for counsel to go on a fishing expedition with the different witnesses in the hope that some statement will be made which can be used in the probate hearing.

“With that in mind I caution you, gentlemen, to limit your examination, and in particular your cross-examination, within the bounds delineated by the Court.

“You may proceed, gentlemen.”

Morton Ellis, with crisp, businesslike efficiency, hurried through the opening stages of the trial.

A surveyor introduced a diagram of the premises, a floor plan of the upper and lower floors of the Hastings mansion. There were photographs of the exterior of the mansion. An autopsy surgeon testified that death was caused by two bullets from a .38-caliber revolver which had penetrated the brain; that the body had been found in bed; that death was instantaneous; that the man had evidently been killed while he was asleep; that the time of death had been sometime early in the morning of Monday, the fourth; that death could have been as late as eight o’clock in the morning of that day, or as early as one o’clock in the morning; that in his opinion the body had not been moved after death but had been found in exactly the position in which it had been lying when the shots were fired; the post-mortem lividity indicated as much.

Ellis said, “I will call Lieutenant Arthur Tragg as my next witness.”

Tragg came forward, was sworn, took the witness stand and told of the discovery of the body and introduced photographs of the body lying in the bed, the room in which the body had been found; and then produced the fatal bullets, one of which had been removed from the mattress after having passed entirely through the head; the other had been found inside the skull.

“Are you acquainted with Perry Mason, the attorney for the defendant?” Ellis asked.

“I am.”

“Have you had occasion to talk with him over the telephone from time to time?”

“I have.”

“Are you familiar with the sound of his voice?”

“I am.”

“I will ask you whether or not you had any conversation with Perry Mason on the morning of Tuesday, the fifth?”

“I did. Yes, sir.”

“And what was that conversation?”

“Mr. Mason called me, he told me that someone had been in his office the day prior to the telephone call.”

“Now, just a minute,” Ellis said, “that would have been Monday, the fourth.”

“That’s right.”

“And what else did Mr. Mason say?”

“He said that this caller had left a woman’s handbag in the office, that the handbag contained a gun, that the gun had been fired twice. He said further that subsequently the bag had been identified as being the property of Adelle Sterling Hastings, the defendant in this case, and suggested that I might care to examine the weapon.”

“And what did you do?”

“I asked one of the men on the homicide squad to put through a call to Garvin S. Hastings and get him on the phone. However, shortly after that a report came in that one of Hastings’ employees had gone to the house to see why Hastings had not been answering the phone and had found the man’s body in bed.”