Erle Gardner - The Case of the Rolling Bones

“That’s right,” Mason observed, calmly exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“You can’t pull that stuff and get away with it,” Kittering stormed.

“Why not?”

Kittering said, “Because it’s illegal; it’s unethical; it’s... I believe it’s a contempt of court. I’m going to see Judge Knox, and tell him the whole contemptible scheme.”

Kittering strode away in the direction of the judge’s chambers. Mason continued to smoke calmly and placidly.

“Chief,” Della Street said in a half whisper, “don’t you suppose Judge Knox will figure it is a contempt of court?”

“I don’t give a damn what he figures,” Mason said, elevating his heels to the seat of an adjoining chair. “I hope he does. It’s time we had a showdown. It’s getting so that any time we don’t follow the conventional methods of solving a case, somebody wants to haul us up before the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association. To hell with them! It’s time they learned where they get off.”

“But, Chief,” she said, “this was...”

Mason interrupted her to nod his head toward where the two deputies, who had escorted Emily Milicant into the room, were engaged in a low-pitched conversation with Alden Leeds.

“Look at them,” he said. “They’re pulling the same old tactics. They’re telling Leeds that Emily Milicant has confessed to everything, and that there’s no use trying to hold out any longer. They think they have the right to pull any of this third degree stuff, that if we do it, we’re shysters. To hell with that stuff. I...”

He broke off as Judge Knox, his face grave, appeared at the door of his chambers and spoke to the bailiff. The bailiff crossed over to Mason, and said, “The judge wants to see you in his chambers immediately, Mr. Mason.”

Mason ground out his cigarette, and said, “Wait here, Della If anyone asks you anything clam up on them. Don’t talk, and above all don’t try to explain.”

Mason strolled on into the judge’s chambers, heedless of the babble of excited voices which filled the courtroom, of the curious eyes which followed him.

Judge Knox said, “Mr. Mason, Mr. Kittering has made a charge of such gravity that I feel I should call on you for an explanation before taking any steps. If this charge is true, it is perhaps not only a contempt of the court, but a flagrant violation of professional ethics.”

Mason seated himself comfortably, crossed his legs, and said, “It’s true.”

“You mean that this young woman was planted in the courtroom for this purpose, that she is an employee of yours, and was not at the restaurant?”

“That’s right,” Mason said, and then added, after a moment, “There’s been a lot of loose talk around here about what constitutes professional ethics. I’m glad to have a showdown.”

“You won’t be so glad if the court considers it contempt,” Judge Knox said grimly.

Mason said, “It’s about time the courts realized that they’re agencies for the administration of justice. They’re instruments of the people. They’re here, not to unwind red tape, but to administer justice. I’ll admit my cross-examination was irregular, but what’s wrong with it? I asked Gertrude Lade to stand up. She stood up. I asked Serle if he didn’t remember this young woman as having been at the table next to him. If he’d been telling the truth, he could have said, ‘no,’ that she couldn’t have been there because he wasn’t at the table, and that was all there was to it.”

“But you had this young woman swear she was there,” Kittering protested.

“I had her do nothing of the sort,” Mason said, glancing contemptuously at the excited deputy. “In the first place, she wasn’t under oath. In the second place, all she said was, ‘That’s him.” Obviously, it was. He’s never claimed to be anyone else. I could point at Judge Knox, and yell, ‘That’s him.’ It wouldn’t be a falsehood. He is him. He’s he, if you want to be grammatical.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Kittering said.

“All right,” Mason said. “We’ll debate the point. You take the side that he isn’t he. I’ll say he is. Now, what proof have you to offer?”

“That isn’t what I meant,” Kittering said.

“It’s what you said,” Mason observed.

“Well, you know what I meant.”

“I don’t give a damn what you meant,” Mason commented. “I’m talking about what was said. That’s all Gertrude Lade said. She said, ‘That’s him.’”

“Well, you know what you intended her words to mean.”

Mason sighed. “She said it was him. I still contend that it was him. Dammit, it is him! I’ll go into any court on any contempt proceedings, or otherwise, and insist that it’s him. Serle is Serle. That’s all she said — ‘It’s him.’”

Judge Knox’s face softened somewhat. The ghost of a twinkle appeared at the corner of his eyes.

Mason followed his advantage. “I have a right to ask anyone in the courtroom to stand up and then point that standing person out to a witness when I’m asking a question. Try and find some law which says I can’t.”

Judge Knox regarded Mason with thoughtful eyes. At length, he said, “Mason, your mind is certainly not geared to a conventional groove. However, as a matter of justice, I am inclined to agree with you, and I don’t know but what I am, as a matter of technical law.”

Mason said, “Why not? If we’d followed this case along conventional lines, Alden Leeds would have been bound over on that fingerprint evidence. He might have been convicted.”

“He had no right to lie about it,” Kittering said.

“He didn’t lie,” Mason observed. “He kept quiet.”

“Well, he should have told us.”

“That,” Mason said, “involves another difference of opinion. However, the law at present says he doesn’t have to. If you have any objection, you’ll have to change the law.”

“He should have notified the authorities as soon as he discovered the body.”

“What makes you think he discovered the body?” Mason asked.

“You said he did.”

“ I wasn’t under oath,” Mason observed.

“But you were acting as his attorney.”

“That’s right. But you can’t convict a man of a crime because of a statement his attorney has made. As a matter of fact, Leeds had never told me that he discovered the body. I’d never asked him that question in those specific words. I merely commented on what I thought had happened, in order to assist the court in arriving at a decision.”

Judge Knox smiled. “It may interest you to know, counselor,” he said to Kittering, “that they caught Serle in the corridor. I don’t want to suggest to you how you should conduct your office, but if I were a deputy district attorney, I certainly would strike while the iron was hot, and try to get a confession from him.”

“I’ll do that,” Kittering said savagely. “But I object to these damnable tactics.”

Judge Knox frowned.

Mason said, “You tapped my telephone line and listened in on confidential...”

“That isn’t the point,” Kittering interrupted. “The point is, that you tried to trick that...”

“What I did was perfectly legal,” Mason cut in, “but tapping our line was manifestly illegal. However, you close your eyes to that. Because you were getting something on me, you were perfectly willing to overlook the manner in which the evidence was obtained. You wouldn’t have known anything about the dead man being Bill Hogarty unless you’d taken advantage of information received through tapping my telephone line. If I’d tapped anyone’s telephone line or hired a detective agency to do it, you’d have had me arrested and instituted disbarment proceedings.”