Court convened at ten o’clock.
Late spectators, shuffling into the courtroom, looking in vain for seats, were admonished by a stern bailiff that there was to be no standing room, that only seated spectators could remain. The low-pitched hum of buzzing conversation, the rustling of restless motion on the part of the spectators, combined to furnish a back-drop of sound, against which the whispered conversation of Perry Mason and Della Street blended so perfectly that only their postures showed they were holding an important conference.
“Gertrude Lade understands her part?” Mason asked.
Della Street nodded.
“Did she make any objection?” Mason asked.
“Not a bit,” Della Street said. “She seemed to like the excitement.”
Mason grinned. “Guess she hired out to the right party.”
“I’ll say she did,” Della Street said.
A side door opened, and a deputy sheriff escorted Alden Leeds into the courtroom.
The whispered conversation died to a dead silence, broken only by the breathing of the attentive audience, a breathing which was a sequence of overlapping sounds, without rhythm.
Judge Knox entered the courtroom from his chambers, and the bailiff rapped the court to order.
Bob Kittering, struggling to keep his voice calm as he arose from his chair, said, “If we may have the indulgence of Your Honor, the prosecution would like to remove the fingerprint expert from the stand long enough to interrogate a new witness who knows important facts which were not entirely within the possession of our office yesterday.”
Judge Knox glanced at Perry Mason.
“No objection,” Mason said.
“Very well, so ordered,” Judge Knox observed.
Kittering said, “Call Harold Leeds to the stand.”
Harold Leeds moved forward from the rear of the courtroom. His steps lagged as though his legs recognized all too clearly the nature of the ordeal awaiting at the end of their journey.
“Step right up,” Kittering said. “... That’s better... Hold up your right hand and be sworn. Now give your name, address, and occupation to the clerk. Be seated on this witness chair... Now, Mr. Leeds, your name is Harold Leeds. You are a nephew of the Alden Leeds who is on trial here in this action as a defendant. Is that right?”
“That,” Harold Leeds said moodily, and with his eyes downcast, “is right.”
“Were you acquainted with John Milicant prior to his death?”
“I was.”
“Did John Milicant, at any time, tell you anything concerning his true identity?”
“Yes, he did.”
“What was it?”
Judge Knox said, “Just a minute before you answer that question,” and looked down at Mason as though expecting an objection. When he heard none, he said, “I’m not certain, gentlemen, but what this question plainly calls for hearsay evidence.”
Kittering pulled his brief case toward him, and took out several pages of closely-written, legal foolscap.
“If Your Honor will permit me,” he said, “I would like to be heard on this. While it is true that the question may, in one sense of the word, call for hearsay evidence, in another sense of the word, it is the sort of hearsay evidence which, by law and custom, has been universally accepted in all courts of justice.
“For instance, the question is frequently asked a witness, ‘How old are you?’ And the witness replies, giving his age. Obviously, the question calls for hearsay evidence, and the answer is founded on hearsay. Yet, it is universally accepted as being necessary in the nature of things that such an exception to hearsay evidence should be permitted.
“Now we come to another and similar situation. A man establishes his identity by going under a certain name. If a man goes under a certain name, that is all that is necessary to establish at least a claim to identity. In the present case, we propose to show that the decedent went for many years under the name of Bill Hogarty, that it was under this name, he met and prospected with Leeds in the Yukon...”
“I understand,” Judge Knox said, “but this question asks the witness to repeat something which the decedent told him. It is your contention that this is part of the res gestae?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Judge Knox frowned. “I’m going to reserve a ruling on that question for the moment,” he said. “The court is inclined to think that there should be some foundation in the case for supporting the contention that this is a part of the res gestae. ”
“I was trying to show that it was, by this very question, Your Honor.”
“I understand that,” Judge Knox said patiently, “but I think you had better first lay a foundation so that the court can determine intelligently how much of a time factor is to enter into the determination of the res gestae. ”
“And,” Kittering pointed out, in a sudden burst of inspiration, “there’s no objection on the part of counsel for the defense.”
Judge Knox’s face showed a flashing expression of surprise. He glanced down at Perry Mason, frowned, and said thoughtfully, “I guess that’s right. Do I understand, Mr. Mason, that such is the case?”
Mason said, “Such is the case, Your Honor. There has been no objection.”
“Well,” Judge Knox said irritably, “lay some foundation anyway.”
Kittering said, “I will ask you this question, Mr. Leeds. Did you, during his lifetime, know a Bill Hogarty?”
“Well,” Leeds said hesitantly, “I knew a Bill Hogarty, alias Conway, alias Milicant.”
“How did you know he was Hogarty?”
Leeds said, with what evidently was the manner of one reciting by rote, “In the same way that I know you are Mr. Kittering, the deputy district attorney — because he told me so. He told me his name wasn’t Milicant, that he wasn’t the brother of Emily Milicant, that he was Bill Hogarty, a man whom Alden Leeds thought he had murdered. He said he’d had his nose broken since and put on a lot of weight, and Uncle Alden hadn’t recognized...”
“Just a moment,” Judge Knox interrupted. “I think that answer has gone far enough. The answer, as given, most certainly answers the question, as asked. I think any statement made by the decedent to this witness for the purpose of showing motivation, malice, or bad blood between the parties should not be admitted in evidence unless it is shown that it was a dying statement. And I take it, counselor, your question didn’t call for such a communication?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Very well. Proceed.”
“Did you see the defendant on the night of the murder — the seventh of this month?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“At about ten-twenty-five in the evening.”
“Where?”
“Emerging from the room of Bill Hogarty — or John Milicant, whichever you want to call him.”
“Please state exactly what you saw and exactly what you did,” Kittering said.
Leeds told Judge Knox his story. At times, his voice was so low that even the court reporter had difficulty in hearing it. At times, he spoke more freely. Always he tried to push into the background his relationship with Inez Colton.
When he had finished, Kittering, evidently hoping to take Mason as much by surprise as possible, said abruptly, “Cross-examine.”
“That,” Mason said with a suave smile, “is all. I have no questions.”
Leeds seemed nonplused. The deputy district attorney was frankly incredulous.
“Do you mean to say there’s to be no cross-examination of this witness? You aren’t cross-examining on the question of identity?”
“No,” Mason said.
“Very well, the witness is excused, and I will now call one more witness slightly out of order — Mr. Guy T. Serle.”
Judge Knox looked down at Perry Mason. “Any objection, counselor?” he said.
“None whatever,” Mason said.
Serle came slowly forward, was sworn, answered the usual preliminary questions, and then glanced expectantly at Kittering.
“You knew William Hogarty, alias John Milicant, alias Louie Conway, in his lifetime?” Kittering asked.
“I did.”
“You saw him on the evening of the seventh of this month?”
“I did.”
“Where?”
“At his apartment.”
“When?”
“Some time around half past seven or quarter to eight in the evening.”
“Who was present?”
“Just Conway — that is, Hogarty — and myself.”
“How long were you there?”
“Until around twenty minutes past eight.”
“What happened at that time? Just tell the court what was said and what was done.”
“Well, Conway...”
“I think,” Kittering interrupted, “that in view of the proof which we now have available, it will be better, for the sake of the record, if you refer to him as Hogarty.”
“Very well. Hogarty and I had had some business dealings. He’d sold me a business. Police had raided it. I figured it was because of a squawk from one of Louie’s customers or from someone who was gunning for Louie. I told him I thought it was on a tip-off from Alden Leeds. Louie didn’t seem at all surprised. I wanted Louie — Hogarty — to stand back of me. He said he would.”
“Was there any other conversation?” Kittering asked.
“That was the substance of it. Hogarty was interrupted by a lot of telephone calls, and he hadn’t eaten any dinner and neither had I. He told me to call a number that he gave me and order a dinner. I put in the call and the dinner came up. It wasn’t Louie — Hogarty — who called. I did the telephoning. I guess it was right around ten minutes past eight when the dinner arrived. We were both in a hurry and we ate fast. Then I shook hands with Hogarty and left.”
“Wasn’t there some other conversation?” Kittering asked.
“Oh, yes. He told me to call back at ten o’clock, and he’d let me know if things were okay.”
“At what time?”
“Ten o’clock.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Did you call him back?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“At ten o’clock on the dot. He told me things were okay, that he was to have a conference in about ten minutes and that he expected the conference would take about ten minutes, that he’d be free after that and would be sitting right there waiting for my call.”
“What time did you call him?” Kittering asked.
“At ten o’clock exactly.”
“Cross-examine,” Kittering flung triumphantly at Perry Mason.
Mason said, in a tone of voice which was that of an ordinary, informal conversation, “You felt that Alden Leeds had given the officers the tip which resulted in a police raid on your place of business?”
“I figured that was possible.”
“And Milicant — or Hogarty, whichever he was — also figured that way?”
“Well, he admitted it was possible. We knew Leeds would be gunning for Conway, trying to get him out of the way — only Leeds didn’t know Conway and Milicant were the same, and he hadn’t recognized Milicant as Hogarty. He thought Hogarty was dead. Hogarty said he was going to get Leeds in and tell him he was Conway.”
“Did you have any trouble getting Milicant to agree to come to your rescue?”
“None whatever. He recognized that it wasn’t fair to make me the goat in his business.”
“Did your troubles affect your appetite?” Mason asked.
“My appetite?”
“Yes.”
“No. When things go against you, they go against you. That’s all there is to it. There’s no use pulling a baby act.”
“Isn’t it a fact that in the Home Kitchen Café on the eighth of this month at some time during the lunch hour, you intimated to me that if Alden Leeds would give you some form of financial renumeration, you would change your testimony so it would appear that telephone conversation with Conway took place after Leeds had left Conway’s apartment?”
“That’s not true,” the witness shouted, “and you know it’s not true!”
“You made no such offer?”
“No. You tried to bribe me and I told you Alden Leeds didn’t have money enough to make me change my story. You tried to threaten me, to bribe me, and to intimidate me.”
Judge Knox regarded Mason in frowning concentration, but Mason casually passed on to something else.
“Mr. Serle,” he asked, “you were arrested the night of the murder on a felony charge, were you not?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever been prosecuted on that felony charge?”
Kittering was on his feet. “Objected to as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial,” he said. “It is not a proper question by way of impeachment. It is only when a witness has been convicted of a felony that that point can be brought out on cross-examination.”
Mason said, “I am not trying to impeach the witness. I am trying to show bias.”
“Objection overruled,” Judge Knox said.
“I haven’t been tried on that case,” Serle said, “because there wasn’t any case. The raid was made on a tip-off from Alden Leeds. There wasn’t any evidence.”
“As a matter of fact,” Mason said, “you were shrewd enough to realize that you could ingratiate yourself with the district attorney’s office by changing the time of that telephone conversation from ten-thirty to ten o‘clock, and did so. Now isn’t it a fact that this telephone conversation which you have referred to as taking place at ten o’clock actually did not occur until approximately thirty minutes later?”
“That is not a fact,” Serle shouted.
“And that as you first related that conversation to the officers at headquarters and as you subsequently related it to me there in the Home Kitchen Café, you made no mention of Hogarty telling you that he had a conference in ten minutes which he expected would take about ten minutes?”
Serle shifted his position, but his voice was calm.
“I remembered some of the conversation more clearly after I’d had a chance to think it over. But that’s what Hogarty told me all right... You know how those things are. You don’t remember everything a man says to you over the phone the first time you try to recall the conversation.”
“After you left this apartment house where Conway, or Milicant, had his apartment, you went directly to the All Night and Day Pool Room, did you not?”
“No.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
“How long was it after you left Conway’s apartment before you entered the pool room?”
“I don’t know. I’d say it was fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“And what were you doing in the meantime?”
“Various things.”
“Name one.”
“I was telephoning.”
“To whom?”
“A friend.”
“Who was this friend?”
Serle paused and looked expectantly at Kittering. Kittering got to his feet, and said, “Your Honor, I object. Not proper cross-examination. Counsel can be given a reasonable latitude in checking the time element. Please note that so far as this witness is concerned, there is no question whatever of his testimony being pertinent to the case except insofar as it relates to the question of time. It is the contention of the defense, naturally, that this telephone conversation occurred after Leeds had left the apartment. It is the contention of the prosecution that it did not.”
Judge Knox glanced down at Perry Mason.
“I’d prefer to have you pass this question for the moment, counselor, and lay some foundation to show that it’s pertinent to the case. The court doesn’t want to embarrass other parties by dragging in their names — unless it’s necessary.”
Mason went on with the cross-examination, calmly, casually.
“Isn’t it a fact that when you entered the pool room, you told witnesses there that you were going to call Louie Conway around ten-thirty?”
“I may have,” Serle said.
“You were lying to these men?”
“I wasn’t lying. I saw no reason for telling pool-room loafers all of my private affairs.”
“Notwithstanding the fact that you knew when you entered the pool room that you intended to call Bill Hogarty, or Louie Conway, as the case may be, at ten o’clock, you nevertheless told these men that you were going to place the call at somewhere around ten-thirty?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you tell the district attorney when you first repeated your story that you had called Conway at ten-thirty?”
“No.”
Kittering said, “Your Honor, I would like to have the decedent referred to as Hogarty rather than Conway. It will keep the record free from confusion, and...”
Judge Knox interrupted. “There is not sufficient proof as yet to warrant the court to require counsel to so frame his questions.”
Mason said, as though the point were of no great importance: “Oh, I guess it’s all right. I’ll stipulate his real name was Hogarty, and so refer to him if counsel wishes.”
“Very well, so stipulated,” Kittering said.
Judge Knox looked sharply at Perry Mason. “That stipulation of identity may be important on the question of motivation, counselor.”
“It’s all right,” Mason said carelessly. “I’ve known he claimed to be Hogarty for some time, and if Kittering has proof of it, I’ll save time by stipulating.”
“I do have proof,” Kittering said.
“Very well,” Judge Knox observed. “Go on with your cross-examination, Mr. Mason.”
“Did you tell the district attorney at first that the time was ten o’clock?” Mason asked.
“I didn’t mention any time.”
“I see,” Mason said. “You told the officers that you had called Hogarty. They then explained to you that it was important to fix the time of that call because if it was after ten-twenty, it would mean they couldn’t convict Alden Leeds of the murder. Isn’t that right?”
“Well, we had a talk. They told me some things and I told them some.”
“Did they explain to you the importance of the time element before you mentioned the exact time of that telephone conversation to them?”
“Well, yes.”
“And you were shrewd enough to realize that this might give you an advantage, so you made some statement to the effect that you saw no reason why you should co-operate with the officers if they were going to raid your place of business, and arrest you on a felony charge, did you not?”
“Well, naturally, I didn’t feel any too cordial.”
“And one of the officers said that that might be fixed up, didn’t he?”
“Well, he said that if the prosecuting witness didn’t show up, it was no skin off their shins.”
“All right,” Mason said, “now getting back to what you did after you left Hogarty’s apartment. You telephoned a friend of yours. Isn’t it a fact that that telephone call was to the Home Kitchen Cafe, and that you talked with Hazel Stickland?”
Serle’s face showed alarmed dismay. “Why... I...”
“Remember,” Mason said, leveling a rigid forefinger at him, “you’re under oath.”
“Well, yes. I did call her, but not at the café.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“Objected to as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and not proper cross-examination,” Kittering said.
“Sustained,” Judge Knox ruled. “You may fix the time of the conversation, counselor. The subject matter would seem beyond the scope of proper cross-examination.”
“Your Honor, I think this conversation is pertinent,” Mason said.
“I don’t, not as the question is asked at the present time. You are, of course, the cross-examiner, and, therefore, have the right to ask leading questions. If you think the conversation is pertinent, frame a question to show that fact.”
Mason, turning to Serle, inquired, “Isn’t it a fact that you told Hazel Stickland to pack her things, and leave town, that you would meet her, give her some money, and explain?”
“Same objection,” Kittering said.
Judge Knox frowned at Perry Mason. “Is it your contention, counselor, that this has anything to do with the crime?”
“Yes,” Perry Mason said. “This girl was a waitress at the Home Kitchen Cafe, and was quite friendly with this witness. On the night of the murder, Serle located Bill Hogarty, before Hogarty went to his apartment. He took Hogarty to the Home Kitchen Cafe for dinner, Hazel Stickland waited on them. The restaurant had two ‘specials’ for dinner that night. One was filet of sole and baked potatoes, the other roast lamb chops, peas, and baked potatoes. Serle and Hogarty had the meat dinner... I have here a menu from that restaurant showing the regular weekly dishes.”
“What time was this?” Judge Knox inquired, puzzled.
“Approximately six o’clock or six-fifteen,” Mason said.
“But this witness had dinner in the apartment with Hogarty the night of the murder,” Judge Knox pointed out. “There seems to be no question of that fact.”
“Look at his face if you think he did,” Mason said.
Kittering was on his feet. “I object to this colloquy between court and counsel, and I object to that statement on the part of counsel. I assign it as prejudicial misconduct.”
Judge Knox glanced swiftly at Serle’s white, drawn face, then looked back to Perry Mason. “The objection is overruled,” he said. “Answer the question.”
“Isn’t that a fact?” Mason asked. “Isn’t that what you told her?”
“No,” Serle said, in a strained, harsh voice.
“You tried to get Hogarty to come through with bail. He wouldn’t come through,” Mason said. “You knew that even if you were bailed out, you’d never be allowed to reopen your business. You were furious. You paid him money for that business. You demanded a return of the purchase price; and you also insisted that he must put up bail. He refused. You started brooding. You knew that he had the better part of twenty thousand dollars in his possession, probably on his person in a money belt. After you separated, you began to wonder whether it would be possible for you to murder him and get that money, but do it in such a way that you would have a perfect alibi. You knew something about how autopsy surgeons fix the time of death from the extent to which digestion has progressed. You knew that at six-fifteen, Hogarty had eaten, and exactly what he had eaten.
“Almost two hours later, you went to his apartment, and killed him. You paused long enough to order a restaurant in the block to bring you up food that was exactly the same as that which Hogarty had consumed in the restaurant. When the waiter arrived with the food you were in Hogarty’s bedroom, apparently engaged in a spirited conversation with him... but Hogarty was already dead. You were pitching your voice to two different tones, and doing all the talking yourself. Isn’t that right?”
“It’s a lie!” Serle shouted, his voice was strained and hoarse.
Mason went on calmly and remorselessly. “You waited until the plates had arrived, and then scraped all of the contents of the plates into the garbage chutes.”
“I did not.”
“Then you left, intent upon building up an alibi. You were careful to see that the door was locked. You didn’t know Marcia Whittaker had a key to that apartment. You left there after the murder and went to the pool room where you knew you could find several of your cronies, and took occasion to tell them that you were going to call Hogarty at around ten-thirty.
“Then, to clinch matters, and make it appear that the decedent had been murdered right after that telephone conversation, you pretended to dial the number and talk with him on the telephone. You pretended to be engaged in a conversation about bail. And from the pool room you went directly to the police station, figuring that that would be the safest way for you to clinch your alibi.”
“I did nothing of the sort,” Serle said with dogged persistence.
Kittering, who had recovered his composure, said, “Your Honor, I object to this. This is an attempt to browbeat the witness. It...”
“Objection overruled,” Judge Knox said. “Proceed, Mr. Mason.”
“Better think again,” Mason said, “because I’m going to prove what I say, Serle.”
Serle clamped his lips tightly together, and said nothing, but the skin across the top of his forehead began to glisten as it slimed with cold perspiration.
“Now,” Mason went on calmly, “let’s go back to the night of the murder. You went to the Home Kitchen Café. Hazel Stickland waited on your table. She...”
“I didn’t eat there the night of the murder,” Serle blurted. “I ate with Hogarty in his apartment. I tell you, I never was at the Home Kitchen Café any time that night.”
Mason said, calmly, “You were there, Serle. You and Bill Hogarty. You may have arranged to get rid of the waitress, but you perhaps failed to notice that two girls were seated at the table next to you, and that Hogarty was surreptitiously trying a pickup.” — Mason whirled abruptly to face the audience. “Miss Gertrude Lade,” he called out. “Will you stand up please?”
Gertrude Lade stood up.
Mason, pointing a rigid forefinger, said, “Look at that young woman, Serle. I am going to ask you if you have ever seen her before — if, as a matter of fact, she wasn’t seated at the table next to you when you were eating dinner in the Home Kitchen Café on Friday, the seventh of this month?”
Gertrude Lade said, “That’s him all right.”
The deputy district attorney jumped to his feet, spouting objections. Mason held up his hand, and said, “No, no, Miss Lade, not a word from you! Please! Your time will come later, you and the young woman who was with you. I just wanted to ask Mr. Serle to identify you, that’s all. Sit down please.”
Gertrude Lade sat down.
Serle’s face had turned a pasty green.
At that moment, the door of the courtroom opened, and two deputies escorted Emily Milicant into the room.
Mason met her eyes in a stony stare, whirled suddenly to face Serle once more. “You still insist that you ate dinner in the company of Bill Hogarty in his apartment and not at the Home Kitchen Café?” Mason asked.
Serle hesitated a moment, then blurted, “We ate two dinners. Once there and once in the apartment. He was still hungry.”
Mason smiled. “And were you so hungry,” he asked, “that you ate up everything off the plate?”
“Yes.”
“You want this court to understand that you ate the jackets from the baked potatoes?”
“Yes,” Serle said. “I always eat them.”
“And,” Mason observed, “you also swallowed the bones from the chops, did you not?”
Serle’s eyes stared at Mason in speechless fear.
Mason said, “You’ll have to try and do better on your next murder, Serle. When you scraped the plates down the garbage chute, you made a fatal error in neglecting to remember that it is customary to leave bones on the plates.”
Mason smiled affably at Judge Knox, and said, “It is the contention of the defense that when Alden Leeds arrived at the apartment, Hogarty was dead. It is, I presume, true that Milicant was really Hogarty. He had been blackmailing this defendant, and it was only natural, although perhaps not legally proper, for the defendant to try and regain possession of papers which he knew were in possession of the dead man, papers which would make public the very disclosures he had sought to suppress. And so the defendant searched the apartment — which accounts for his fingerprints. He made a frantic effort to find those papers.”
“But,” Kittering countered, jumping to his feet, “those papers were papers which connected him with the attempted murder of Bill Hogarty, with the stealing of his property, and...”
“Oh, no,” Mason said with a smile. “ Those papers related to an entirely different matter. The defendant found them, thank you. They have been destroyed.”
And Mason sat down.
Serle yelled, “It’s a lie!”
Kittering said, “Your Honor, I object to...”
Mason whirled to face Kittering, “If you were a little more interested in finding the real criminal, and a little less in trying to convict an innocent man, merely because you have started to prosecute him, you’d be cooperating with me in this thing instead of opposing me... When the first check was given to Hogarty, the bank had to cash it, but, thinking it might be blackmail, they wrote down the numbers on the bills. Serle got those bills after the murder of Hogarty. I think you’ll find them in his possession right now.”
Judge Knox said, “This court is going to take a twenty-minute recess. We...”
He broke off as Serle, shouting, “I refuse to stand for this persecution,” streaked across the courtroom and through the door of the judge’s chambers.
Judge Knox shouted at the deputy sheriff, who had Leeds in charge, “Get him! Get him! Don’t sit there like a fool!”
The deputy sheriff sprinted into action.
Mason scratched a match on the sole of his shoe, and lit a cigarette.
Della Street squeezed his wrist enthusiastically. “Chief,” she said, “I could dance a jig on the judge’s bench.”
“Take it easy, “he told her. “Be nonchalant. Light a cigarette. Remember people are watching you. Act on the assumption that you can pull a rabbit out of the hat any time any place. How about a cigarette?”
“Give me the one you’re smoking, Chief,” she said. “I couldn’t light a cigarette to save my life. Why did you make that crack about Alden Leeds finding Hogarty dead, and then searching the apartment?”
“Because I wanted to explain his fingerprints,” Mason said, “and I wanted to give Emily Milicant a tip on the Hogarty angle. I...”
He broke off as Kittering came storming over to their table.
Kittering, his voice so indignant that he could hardly talk, sputtered, “What the devil do you mean... You’ll be disbarred for this.”
“For what?” Mason asked.
Kittering pointed an indignant finger at Gertrude Lade. “ That girl ” he stormed. “She was no more in the restaurant than I was! One of my investigators tells me she’s in your office, working at the switchboard.”
“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.”
“Occasionally,” Kittering admitted to Judge Knox, “we have to condone certain irregularities in order to combat criminal activities. It’s a case where the ends justify the means.”
“The ends in this case,” Mason observed, “would have been the conviction of an innocent man of first degree murder.”
Kittering jumped to his feet. “You,” he said, “can’t...”
“I really think, counselor,” Judge Knox interrupted, “that you should get busy and start discharging the real duties of your office.”
Mason smiled across at Judge Knox. “The attitude of the prosecution,” he said, “is that they don’t care so much about who committed a murder as about keeping me from winning a case.”
“That’s not true,” Kittering shouted.
Judge Knox fastened him with a stern eye. “It seems to be true,” he observed, and then added, “If your office has been listening to privileged communications over a tapped wire, it would seem that your position is definitely precarious. You understand, counselor, that if Alden Leeds had been guilty, the situation might have been different. Leeds’ innocence, however, puts your office in an entirely different position, and puts Mason in a different position, legally, ethically, and morally.”
“Someday,” Kittering flared, “Mason will defend a guilty man, and then...”
Mason yawned, and said, “Well, if counsel doesn’t care to confide his discussion to the present, and wishes to neglect the duties of his office, to waste time in idle speculation on the future, I’d like to ask him what he thinks about railroad stocks as an investment...”
Kittering flung himself out of the door.
Judge Knox stared across at Perry Mason. “You have to admit,” he said, “that you skate on pretty thin ice, Mason — how long have you known Serle was the guilty party?”
“Not very long,” Mason admitted. “I should have known it a lot sooner than I did.”
“Why?”
“Well,” Mason explained, “it’s this way. Right from the first, the evidence showed dinner had been ordered at the Blue and White Restaurant, not in the usual manner, but in a most extraordinary manner. In other words, they didn’t ask the waiter what was on the menu and then make a selection. The waiter was told to get lamb chops, green peas, and potatoes, and if he didn’t have them available, to get them. Then again, the evidence showed right from the first that the plates were empty. It’s unusual for two men who are engaged in a hurried conference to order a dinner in that manner. It’s unusual for two men to both order the same thing. It’s unusual for men to clean up everything on the plates, and it’s absolutely unique for a man who has been eating a lamb chop to devour the bone. And you’ll remember the waiter testified that the plates were bare. Nothing remained on them.
“Moreover, it’s always been my idea that when a man has an iron-clad alibi in a murder case, it’s a very good thing to inspect that alibi closely. While a man who has a genuine alibi can’t have committed a murder, nevertheless, a man who has committed a deliberate murder always tries to provide himself with an alibi. Serle was the only one involved who had an alibi. It looked iron-clad on the face of it, but alibis should never be taken at their face value.
“It was quite apparent that the dead man had a large sum of cash in his possession. That money disappeared. It would seem, therefore, that at least one of the motives for the crime was robbery. Now Alden Leeds might have killed him because of that blackmail business, but he would never have robbed the corpse — not unless he had done so in an attempt to throw the officers off the trail. If he had done that, he would have been far too cautious to have left his fingerprints all over the apartment.
“I knew that Serle ate regularly at the Home Kitchen Café. I knew that they had a weekly menu — that is, each day of the week they featured a special, the same dish on the same day.
“The murder was committed on a Friday. Serle accompanied Conway or Milicant or Hogarty — or whatever you want to call him — to his apartment. They were both smoking cigars. At that time in the evening, a cigar usually represents an after-dinner smoke. And then I suddenly remembered what I myself had eaten at the Home Kitchen Café on Friday night — roast lamb, baked potatoes, green peas. And I had the menu that they use week after week to prove I wasn’t dreaming! A good chemical analysis would probably show the difference between beef and lamb after the digestive processes have stopped working, but the difference between roast lamb and broiled lamb, never.”
Judge Knox said, “Personally, Mason, I think it’s a most remarkable piece of detective work, an example of sheer deductive genius.”
Mason shook his head. “I’ll never forgive myself for becoming so engrossed in the incidental matters. After all, Judge, that’s one thing a detective should guard against. He should never let his attention become so concentrated on the incidental matters that he feels they are other than mere incidentals.”
Judge Knox studied him curiously. “What,” he asked, “were the incidental matters which so engrossed you?”
“Minor matters,” Mason said, vaguely, “interesting but purely incidental.”
Judge Knox smiled. “Are you, by any chance, referring to the identity of John Milicant as Bill Hogarty?”
Mason said, “That really was a surprise to me, although I should have appreciated the significance of that clue of the frostbitten foot.”
Judge Knox let the smile fade from his lips, although his eyes remained kindly.
“Mason,” he said, “the proof that Milicant was Hogarty certainly seems rather vague and sketchy. If Milicant had been blackmailing Leeds, and one of Leeds’ relatives had called on him for an explanation, wouldn’t it have been only natural for Milicant to have used the documents in his possession to substantiate a spurious claim made by way of justification to the nephew that he actually was the Bill Hogarty who had been wronged by Leeds years ago? Wouldn’t this be the logical way to fabricate a justification for blackmail?”
Mason’s face showed surprise. “That,” he said, “is an interesting question.”
“And do you want me to understand that you have never given it any consideration?” the judge asked.
“Well,” Mason said with a grin, “no oral consideration.”
Judge Knox sighed. “Mason, I confess to a liking for you. I like the colorful life you lead. I like the dashing way you shortcut the conventional methods. I like your career of adventurous excitement. But has it ever occurred to you that Kittering’s prophecy is undoubtedly correct? The time will come when you will find yourself defending a guilty client.”
Mason arose from his chair. He saw fit to favor the judge with a grin. “He won’t be guilty,” he said, “until they prove him guilty.”
Knox sighed. “I’m afraid you’re incorrigible.”
Mason bowed. “Thank you, Your Honor,” he said, “for the compliment.”