Erle Gardner - The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife

“As I remember it,” Mason said, “the twelfth was a very hot dry cloudless day with low humidity until along late in the afternoon when fog started coming in.”

“I think it was in the evening that it turned foggy. We were just going to meet Mother when the fog settled down.”

“Before, it had been a hot day?”

“Yes.”

“A very hot day?”

“Yes.”

“And yet this large piece of ice was left at four o’clock in the afternoon?” Mason asked incredulously.

“Well, I think Arthur bought a fifty pound piece and then this ice was left. My God, is it a crime to put beer on ice?”

“But you remember the day particularly, Thursday, the twelfth, as a dry, hot cloudless day?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” Mason said, suddenly whipping the photograph before her, “how do you account for these lovely fleecy clouds which are shown so plainly in this photograph you yourself took, and which you have said accurately shows the condition of your picnic party at four o’clock in the afternoon?”

“I... I guess I was mistaken... I guess there must have been some clouds.”

“Think again,” Mason said. “The weather records show that Thursday, the twelfth, was very dry and cloudless.”

She bit her lip, glanced at Attica.

“After all,” Attica said, “these clouds don’t mean anything.”

“Why don’t they?” Mason asked.

“Well,” Attica said, “we don’t know. The newspaper people might have put them in.”

“They show very plainly on the photographs which this witness introduced in court yesterday afternoon.”

Mason turned suddenly to the witness. “As a matter of fact, Miss Cushing, these pictures were not taken on Thursday, the twelfth. They were taken on Friday, the thirteenth. Weren’t they?”

“No.”

“After I had called on you with Paul Drake and after the officers had started their investigation and you started making up stories, you worked up a purely synthetic and romantic story of a proposal of marriage and a picnic. The picnic accounted for the wet blanket and the wet shoes. Then in order to see that there would be evidence of that picnic you and Mr. Lacey went up to the courthouse with Lieutenant Tragg, secured a declaration of intention to wed, made application for a license, went to Attica’s office and filed suit, talked with Sergeant Dorset and then at about three-thirty dashed out to take some picnic pictures. Didn’t you?”

“No.”

“And,” Mason went on, “you remember when you were talking with us Mr. Lacey mentioned about the lunch you had, that there was roast chicken and how tough it was?”

“It was tough.”

“Did you eat the bones?”

“Certainly not.”

“But, when I went out to the spot where you had had the picnic,” Mason said, “and prowled around in the garbage, I didn’t find any chicken bones at all. But I did find the remains of some macaroni and cheese, and some creamed tuna. Now, the delicatessen store where you claim you purchased these things tells me that on Friday it makes a specialty of creamed tuna, that it sells creamed tuna on Friday, but not at any other time.”

“I don’t know what delicatessen store he got it at.”

Mason said, “Better think carefully, Mrs. Lacey, because this is very very important.”

“I am thinking carefully!”

“And suppose I should introduce a witness from the delicatessen store who would identify Arthur Lacey as the man who purchased some things for a picnic luncheon on Friday, the thirteenth? Suppose I should introduce a man from the lumber yard who would say that Mr. Lacey picked out that board on Friday, the thirteenth? And suppose I should introduce a witness who saw you taking that board out in an automobile on Friday so that you could rig up a raft and...”

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Will you please stop it! My God, do you have to go prying into everything?”

Mason smiled. “I’ve given you an opportunity to tell the truth. You’re testifying under oath, Mrs. Lacey. I’m going to conclude this deposition now. If you don’t change your testimony before the deposition is concluded, and it turns out your testimony is false, you’ll be guilty of perjury.”

She was crying now.

Attica said, “After all, Mr. Mason, she’s under quite a strain. Suppose we discontinue this deposition for a couple of hours, and she’ll be feeling a little better by that time. Your questions have been rather... well, rather ruthless.”

Mason said, “We’re going to continue with this deposition right now. Look here, Mrs. Lacey, isn’t it a fact that you made up this story about the picnic out of whole cloth and that after that you rushed out on Friday, the thirteenth, and staged this picnic and took the photographs on that date?”

She glanced helplessly at Attica.

“If you’re feeling too upset to answer questions,” Attica said, “you can simply refuse to answer on the ground that your health won’t permit. I can’t blame you for being upset, my dear.”

“In that case,” Mason said, “I’ll close the deposition and stand on the answers that have already been made, and we’ll see whether we can do something about it when it comes to a prosecution for perjury.”

Mason turned to the witness and said, “Let’s try telling the truth, for a change, Mrs. Lacey. When Mr. Drake, Lieutenant Tragg and I called on you on Friday, the thirteenth, you didn’t know one thing about what had actually happened the night before, except that Scott Shelby was supposed to have been murdered. But when we talked, and more particularly when we showed you the wet blanket and the shoes in your garage, you suddenly realized what must have happened.

“Your boy friend was there, and he was in a spot. He isn’t a fast thinker. You are. You loved him, but he had never proposed marriage and never intended to do so. You saw your chance. You made up a story out of whole cloth to account for the wet blanket and the shoes, and you were clever enough to demand as a price of your cooperation that Mr. Lacey marry you.

“The proposal of marriage didn’t take place in your office as you have said. It didn’t take place the day before. It took place there in the apartment right under our noses. You were the one who made it. And you made it in such a way that Arthur Lacey either had to stand a rap for murder, or confirm your story, which included a proposal of marriage.

“That was why he was reticent at first, that was why he didn’t chime in with corroborating details until he realized fully that you had given him his only chance to get out, and that the price of your cooperation was marriage.

“And you very neatly made him go through with that marriage because a wife can’t be forced to testify against her husband, and you knew that and he knew it, so he went ahead and married you — after you’d gone out and taken these picnic pictures, which you did as soon as you got rid of Sergeant Dorset. Isn’t that right?”

The witness made no answer.

Mason extended the tube of lead Della Street had picked up at the picnic grounds to Mrs. Lacey. “Did you ever see this before, Mrs. Lacey?”

“No.”

Attica said, “What’s a sinker got to do with all this business anyway?”

Mason said, “I don’t think it’s a sinker. You’ll notice it’s a lead tube two and nine-sixteenths inches in length and around sixty-one hundredths of an inch in diameter. In other words, as I remember my ballistics, that is just the size to fit the bore of a sixteen gauge shotgun. And now, if you will notice,” Mason said, taking a .38 caliber shell from his pocket, “I will insert a .38 caliber shell in the inside of this lead ring or tube and you will see that it fits perfectly, settles right in snug up against the lead. Now with this device, Mrs. Lacey, you could fire a shell through a revolver into a tub of water, recover the bullet, crimp it back in a fresh shell whose own bullet had been removed, place that shell in this adapter, put the adapter in a sixteen gauge shotgun, pull the trigger, and discharge a bullet which has no markings of rifling or barrel scratches other than those which were imparted to it by the .38 caliber pistol from which it had been originally fired. The bullet would have a tendency to wobble or keyhole and it wouldn’t have the power or the penetration that a bullet would have which had been fired from a revolver barrel because the gases of combustion would slip on past the bullet in the barrel of the shotgun. But at short ranges it would nevertheless be fairly effective. Incidentally, if you’re interested, Mr. Attica, you’ll find, in the excellent work on Forensic Chemistry and Scientific Criminal Investigation by A. Lucas, a discussion of the Dickman murder case in which two different caliber bullets were shot from the same gun by the use of a paper wrapping or adapter. And Smith and Glaister, in their book entitled Recent Advances in Forensic Medicine, state that ‘the projectile may be much smaller in caliber than the weapon and still have been fired from it; for example the 0.32 inch bullet may be fired from a 0.38 inch weapon if it is wrapped in sufficient paper to grip the barrel.’ This probably occurred in the Dickman case in which the presence of bullets of two different calibers in the body of the victim led to the belief that two different weapons had been used.”