Erle Gardner - The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife

“Indeed?” Mason said, “I’d be interested in those pictures.”

“ If the Court please!” Burger protested.

“Oh, let’s have the pictures. Let’s get it over with,” Judge Maxwell said impatiently. “You opened the door for all this, Mr. Burger, and I’m not going to slam it in the face of the witness on the one hand, or the counsel for the defense on the other; not after the manner in which you deliberately opened it. Go ahead. Let’s get the whole story.”

Mason gravely took the pictures which the witness handed him.

“You can see in those photographs,” the witness said, “that my husband — the man shown in this picture — is standing on a raft. He got his feet wet getting on and off that raft. It was something that he made himself out of a board and some sticks. And here’s the blanket with the ice on it. We carried the ice in a blanket and carried it over in the blanket to the place where we were having a picnic.”

“Why in a blanket?” Mason asked.

“Did you ever try to carry ice in your bare hands, Mr. Mason?” the witness asked acidly.

There were smiles in the courtroom.

“And after your picnic?” Mason asked.

“After the picnic I was with my husband.”

“For how long?”

“Until I had to go to the train to meet my mother. And my mother stayed with me the entire night.”

Mason glanced at the clock. “I take it that the Court now wishes to adjourn until tomorrow morning?”

Judge Maxwell nodded. He was plainly angry with the district attorney for the manner in which he had introduced the bias of the witness in an attempt to arouse the sympathies of the jury and equally irritated at Perry Mason for the manner in which he had exploited that blunder on the part of the district attorney. He said, “Court is about to take a recess. Tomorrow is Saturday, and there will be no session of the court until Monday morning at ten o’clock. The jury will remain in the custody of the sheriff and will not converse about this case, discuss it in any way among themselves, or permit others to discuss it in their presence. They will refrain from forming or expressing any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant until the case is finally submitted to them. Court is adjourned.”

The judge got up and stalked angrily away into chambers.

Burger glowered across at Mason. “Satisfied, I trust?” he said sarcastically.

Mason grinned at him. “Go ahead and open doors and I’ll stick my foot in them,” he promised.

“You’ve got your foot in it now,” Burger said angrily, started to say something else, then got up and stormed out of the courtroom.

Mason said to the deputy sheriff who had Marion Shelby in charge, “Just a minute before you take her back. I want to ask her a couple of questions.”

The deputy sheriff nodded, withdrew a few paces.

Mason leaned forward, said in a low tone to Marion Shelby, “The answer to this may be very, very important. Are you absolutely certain that the man you saw fall overboard was your husband?”

“Absolutely.”

“Did you see his features?”

“Not when he was falling, but after he was in the water.”

“You are certain it was your husband?”

“Absolutely positive.”

“There was enough light so that you could see plainly?”

“Yes.”

“You heard his voice?”

“Yes.”

“It was your husband’s voice?”

“Yes.”

“Now then, be very careful about this. Was your husband moving?”

“Yes. He was moving. He was struggling in the water in a peculiar way.”

“Lying on his back or on his stomach?”

“Lying on his back.”

“So you couldn’t see the back of his neck?”

“No, only his face.”

“And you’re certain he was moving?”

“Of course he was moving. He was making fighting motions with his hands and legs, kicking and struggling, not the way a man would who was strong and healthy but as though he had been... as though he’d been hit on the head. I think that blow on the head really has something to do with it.”

“And he was alone down there in the water? There was no one with him?”

“No one with him. No.”

“But there was an overhang to the bow of the yacht. You couldn’t see what was under the bow?”

“No, I guess not. My husband was swept underneath that overhang by the current and out of sight. I thought he was drifting down the starboard side. He seemed to be heading in that direction. But when I ran down that side — well, you know, he’d gone down the port side.”

“And you had heard the sound of the shot before you reached the bow of the boat and looked down into the water?”

“Yes. That shot took place just after my husband fell or was dragged overboard.”

“You think he may have been dragged overboard?”

“There was something very peculiar about the way he was standing and swaying back and forth. It was as though something was pulling him from down in the water, some force that he seemed to be struggling against. He was wrestling... wrestling with an invisible antagonist.”

Mason said, “It might help your case a lot, Mrs. Shelby, if the facts of the matter were that your husband was not struggling when you saw him in the water after that shot was fired. Perhaps he was just lying limp but the current was moving his arms and legs so that it appeared there might have been some gentle motion.”

“It wasn’t a gentle motion. He was kicking. He was trying to fight.”

Mason said, “You realize the obvious implications of having the fatal wound caused by a bullet fired from this gun?”

“Of course, I do.”

“Well,” Mason said, “think it over. You don’t have to go on the stand yet.”

“You want me to change my testimony, don’t you, Mr. Mason?”

Mason said somewhat wearily, “I want you to tell the truth, that’s all. But if you are lying, I warn you that the lie is very apt to send you to the death cell.”

“I can’t help it. I’m not going to change my story. I told the truth and I’m sticking with it. The truth is the truth, and that’s all there is to it.”

“If it’s the truth, that’s all there is to it,” Mason said, and his voice showed that he was suddenly tired. “Now let’s find out a little more about that gun. It’s your husband’s gun?”

“That’s right.”

“How long had he owned it?”

“I don’t know. He’d had it ever since I knew him.”

“Did he carry it?”

“He didn’t, at first, but the last couple of months he’d been carrying it.”

“Know why?”

“No.”

“Some new enemy perhaps?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he carrying it with him that last day — the twelfth?”

“Yes. It was in his hip pocket when he went to bed. He took it out of his pocket and put it on the top of the dresser.”

Mason thought that over. “And he asked you to pick up the gun and bring it to him when he telephoned?”

“Yes.”

“Then, since he’d been carrying it, there must have been someone he feared?”

“I guess so, yes. One other thing Mr. Mason, he’d shot the gun the day before... no, two days before.”

Mason’s eyes showed quick interest. “How do you know?”

“It was empty when he took it out of his pocket on the night of the tenth. He opened a drawer, took out a box of shells and reloaded it.”

“The deuce he did! Did you ask for an explanation?”

“No. I never asked him for explanations. I’d got over that.”

Mason frowned. “Suppose he was practicing?”

“I suppose that must have been it.”

“All six chambers were empty?”

“Yes. He reloaded them all.”