The Case of the Daring Divorcee (14 page)

Beason was thoughtful. "Minerva Hastings," he said, "is very resourceful, very daring, very shrewd. If she engaged in any activity of that sort it would have been well planned-down to the smallest detail."

"Apparently," Mason said, "this was well planned, down to the smallest detail."

Beason said nothing.

The phone rang sharply.

Mason picked it up and Della Street said, "Mrs. Grump is in the office."

"I see," Mason said. "I think we had better proceed."

"That means I'm to send her in?"

"Yes," Mason said.

Mason opened the drawer of his desk, handed a pair of dark glasses to Simley Beason.

"Would you," he asked, "mind putting these on?"

"Why?" Beason asked.

"I just want to see if it would make a difference in your appearance."

Beason hesitated a moment, then put on the dark glasses.

Mason regarded him critically.

The door from the outer office opened and Della Street said, "Mrs. Crump."

"Oh, hello, Mrs. Grump," Mason said, "would you mind coming in and being seated for a moment?"

Mrs. Grump, a chunky woman in her fifties, came marching forward.

Simley Beason hastily snatched at the dark glasses.

Mrs. Grump turned to look at him, said, "Why, what happened, Mr. Mason? Didn't you go to Arizona after all?"

Beason smiled weakly, nodded his head toward Mason and said, "That's Mr. Mason. I'm Simley Beason."

"Why, you-Aren't you…? Why, you're the one who-"

"I think he is the one, Mrs. Crump," Mason said. And turning to Beason, said, "I'd like very much to get a complete story of what you were doing in my office this morning shortly after six o'clock, and what happened to the revolver you took out of the upper right-hand drawer of my desk."

Mason smiled at Mrs. Crump and said, "That's all, Mrs. Crump. That's all we need you for at the moment. If you'll return to the outer office, Miss Street, my secretary, will see that you're given a check for your services. I hesitated to bother you but-"

"That's all right, that's all right," she said. "I'm only too glad to do anything I can."

She gave Beason a look of obvious distaste, then turned and lumbered from the office.

Mason tilted back in the swivel chair, lit a cigarette, extended his hand for the dark glasses and sat silent.

The pressure of continued silence was too much for Beason.

"All right," he said, "I suppose it was a clumsy attempt. I did what I could to aid Adelle."

"Just how friendly are you and Adelle?" Mason asked. "What is the relationship?"

"There's nothing improper, if that's what you mean," Beason said, "but I-Damn it, Mason, I… I suppose I've trapped myself. I suppose I'm in one hell of a predicament right now."

The lawyer sat at his desk saying nothing, waiting for Beason to assume the conversational initiative.

"All right," Beason said, "I can tell you because you know it anyway. I think the world of Adelle Hastings. I… I love her."

"How long have you felt that way?" Mason asked.

"I was drawn to her from the first minute she entered the office. I won't say it was a case of love at first sight, but I was very much interested in her, very much fascinated by her."

"Ever take her out on a date?" Mason asked.

Beason shrugged his shoulders. "What chance does an employee stand when the boss is falling in love?"

"It depends," Mason said. "It might depend a great deal on the woman."

"I don't think Adelle realized how I felt toward her."

"Does she realize now?" Mason asked.

"I don't know. I've never said anything that would give her that impression, but-Well, she's been very friendly, very considerate, and very nice to me."

"And she told you what had happened about the handbag and the gun?"

"Yes. After you left Las Vegas I became very much concerned about the telephone call Adelle had made while you were there, so I called her back and asked her to tell me what the trouble was."

"And she did?"

"Not over the telephone. She said she was going to drive in."

"So you met her sometime in the small hours of the morning?"

"At five o'clock," Beason said. "We had breakfast together. Good Lord, what am I saying? I'm putting my neck in a noose and hers right along with mine. I never thought any of this would come out."

"Lots of things come out in a murder case," Mason said.

Beason said, "I was only trying to help. Apparently I didn't do such a good job."

"You certainly didn't," Mason said. "Not only for Adelle Hastings, but you've put me on the spot. How did you know where to find that gun?"

"Adelle told me what you had done with it."

"Then, she knew you were going to come up here and get it?"

"Heavens, no! She didn't have the slightest idea. She told me her story. She asked me what to do. She had no idea what I intended to do."

"Did she tell you that she had been the one who left the bag in my office?" Mason asked.

"No, no! Don't you understand? That's the reason I became interested and.. – in doing what I did. She said very definitely that her handbag had been stolen, that there was no gun in it when it was stolen, and that then the gun was found in the handbag which had been left in your office by a woman who claimed she was Adelle Hastings. So right away I knew she was being deliberately framed."

"You hadn't discovered the body of Hastings at that time?"

"I hadn't discovered the body, no. However, I had done everything but that. I put two and two together and came to the conclusion that something had happened. – . that some crime had been committed with that gun and that there was a deliberate, determined attempt to blame it on Adelle."

"So you were going to do everything you could to see that Adelle was kept in the clear."

"Let's put it this way, Mr. Mason. I felt that someone was desperately trying to get Adelle in a lot of trouble and I felt that I'd… well, that I'd throw a few monkey wrenches in the machinery."

"All right," Mason said, "where's the gun now?"

"I've got it where no one is going to find it"

"I'm going to find it," Mason said.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm going to get that gun and turn it over to the police," Mason said. "Can't you understand? You've left me in the middle. I've told the police my story about the gun. I had to. The gun is evidence. I'm an attorney. I can't conceal evidence. You're a citizen. You can't conceal evidence. You would put yourself in the position of being an accessory after the fact. If you beat that, you might be convicted on a charge of concealing evidence. I want you to get that gun and I want you to get it right away."

"And then you're going to turn it over to the police?"

"GertaInly I'm going to turn it over to the police."

Beason sighed wearily. "All right," he said. "I guess I know when I'm licked. May I use the phone?"

"Right here," Mason said, indicating the telephone. "Just press that button and it will give you an outside line."

Beason took the phone, pressed the button and waited until the light came on and dialed a number.

"Hello," he said, "I want to talk to Rosalie."

Beason waited for a few moments, then said, "Hello, Rosalie? This is Simley Beason. I want you to do something very important for me right away. I'm at the office of Perry Mason, the attorney. I want you to go to my locker and in there you'll find my golfing clothes and a golf bag full of clubs.

"Take the golf bag out, lift the clubs out of the golf bag, turn it upside down and a package will fall out-a package that is done up in brown paper and that has a label on it stating that the contents of this package were taken from the desk drawer in Perry Mason's office at six o'clock this morning. You'll find the address of Mason's office on that label, and you'll find my signature on it. That tag is fastened to the brown paper with tape and the package is sealed.

"I want you to bring that package to me at Mr. Mason's office just as fast as you can get here. Take a taxicab. You can join me in Mason's office and I'll drive you back. Have you got that?"

Beason listened for a few moments, then said, "Good girl. I'll be waiting here."

Beason hung up the telephone and said to Mason, "I don't suppose I need to tell you how satisfactory it is to have a good, loyal secretary, but it's a wonderful feeling. I've been putting up with some pretty mediocre secretaries for a while and then Rosalie Blackburn came along and it's made all the difference in the world. You only need to tell her something once and she gets it and gets it right."

"Why did you go to all the precaution of sealing that package and putting a label on it?" Mason asked.

"I did it to protect Adelle Hastings. If anything should happen to me I didn't want anyone to find that package and think that Adelle had been responsible for putting it there."

"What do you mean, in case anything should happen to you?"

"Oh, I'm not morbid, Mr. Mason. I just recognize the fact that these days a person can get killed in an automobile accident just as easy as not, and-Well, life is full of risks, that's all."

Mason regarded him narrowly. "That's the only reason you took all those precautions?"

"Well, I wanted to… I wanted to have the thing done right."

"Did you," Mason asked, "write down the number on that gun when you had it in your possession and before you wrapped it?"

"No. Why should I have done that?"

"To see no one changed guns on you and perhaps substituted the fatal gun for Adelle's gun."

"No, I didn't take the number, but I wrapped it in tissue paper, then in heavy brown paper, sealed the paper with tape, wrote my name across the seal and labeled the package."

Mason said, "You may have undone the very thing you were trying to do."

"What do you mean?"

Mason said, "Hastings was murdered. It was a coldblooded deliberate murder. You don't shoot a man in his sleep in the heat of passion. When a man is lying in bed and you sneak up alongside of him while he is asleep and pull the trigger, you are committing a premeditated, planned murder."

Beason nodded.

"And then when you take the precaution of shooting him twice in the head, you want to be very, very certain that he is dead."

Beason shifted his position, then rather reluctantly nodded his head.

"So we are dealing with a cold-blooded murderer," Mason said, "a person who is shrewd, resourceful, selfish and probably ingenious as the devil.

"Now then, Hastings had his house locked. There is no indication that anyone forced any of the windows. Therefore the police reasoning will be that whoever entered the house had a key. Now, as I understand it, there were two outside keys to the house. One of them was in the office, so that if Hastings wanted anyone to bring papers to the house, or get anything from the house in his absence, he could telephone and have it done. The other key was in the possession of Adelle Hastings. Now, how about a possible third key? What about Minerva, did she keep a key?"

"No, she sent her key in with a very bitter letter."

"How do you know?"

"Mrs. Hastings showed me the letter."

"What was in it?"

"Oh, it was an act. She was laying the foundation for a good property settlement. She said that she felt like an old shoe, that he had been proud of her when she was new and then he had discarded her and thrown her out on the trash heap."

"She got a good property settlement?" Mason asked.

"I considered it a very good property settlement. She didn't."

"What attorney negotiated it, the Nevada attorney?"

"No, she and Hastings worked it out by themselves."