The Case of the Troubled Trustee (24 page)

Mason, putting papers in his brief case, said, "About the way I expected."

"You don't sound too enthusiastic."

Mason shook his head and said, "Go ahead and get a night's sleep and try to forget about the case. No one ever knows what a jury is going to do."

The lawyer nodded to the bailiff and to the officer who was coming forward to take Dutton into custody, managed a reassuring smile for Della Street, then walked out of the courtroom, his shoulders squared, his manner confident, his chin up, his stomach cold.

Chapter Twenty

Back in his office, all of Mason's assurance vanished.

"Well?" Della Street asked.

"Get Paul Drake," Mason said. "We've got to do somethingor our man is going to be convicted of first-degree murder."

"What can you do?" Della Street asked.

"We've got to do something," Mason said. "We're going to have to think up something."

"You think it's that bad?"

"I know it's that bad. The idea of Dutton bucketshopping the stocks in the trust fund and deliberately deceiving the beneficiary into believing the trust fund was being exhausted just didn't sit well with that jury."

Della said, "Paul Drake's on his way down here now."

A few moments later, Drake's code knock sounded on the door, and Della opened it to admit the detective.

Drake raised inquiring eyebrows and Della shook her head.

Mason, pacing the floor, was engrossed in thought.

Drake slipped across to the client's chair and seated himself.

Mason said, "We've got to pull a rabbit out of the hat, Paul."

Drake nodded.

Mason continued his pacing the floor. "Something dramatic. Something that will drive home our contention."

"How does it look?" Drake asked.

"You know how it looks," Mason said, without changing the tempo of his stride or even glancing at the detective. "Hamilton Burger has alienated any sympathy the jurors might have had for the defendant. He's mixed up the only witness we had who could give any evidence that would enable us to talk about reasonable doubt."

"You've licked him so many times in front of a jury," Paul Drake said, "that I think you're being unduly pessimistic this time."

Mason shook his head. "Usually Hamilton Burger doesn't have a chance to strut his stuff. I get the witness on cross-examination and uncover some point which enables me to prove that the prosecution's theory of the case is erroneous. Before he's ready to rest his case, he doesn't have any case left.

"This time I've had to go ahead and put witnesses on the stand. Burger has had a chance to cross-examine them. The roles have been reversed. He's ripped my witnesses to pieces."

"Do you think it's true that he has two witnesses who will swear it was at ten o'clock the shot was heard?"

"It has to be true," Mason said. "Of course, I'm going to have a chance to cross-examine those witnesses and, believe me, Paul, there's something queer about that."

"What do you mean?"

"If they had been as positive as he makes them sound, he'd have put them on the witness stand as part of his case in chief. The fact that he's holding them for rebuttal indicates that he didn't intend to use them unless he had to."

"Do you think he'll just back away from the question now that he's got our witness confused?" Drake asked.

"I won't let him," Mason said. "I'm going to insist that he put those two witnesses on the stand and then I'm going to cross-examine them. I may get a break out of it, but I may not. I don't know. All I know is that the way the case looks at present, we've got a defendant who is headed for the gas chamber or for life imprisonment."

"Any suggestions?" Drake asked.

"I'm thinking of one right now."

"Such as what?"

Mason said, "Paul, start pulling wires. I want to get the latest and best metal detector that money can buy. I understand there are some new ones that are very sensitive."

"You mean mine detectors?" Drake asked.

"So-called," Mason said.

"And what do we do?"

"We go out to the Barclay Country Club and we start sweeping around the grass out in the vicinity of the seventh tee."

"Looking for what?"

"An expended cartridge."

Drake said, "Don't be silly, Perry! The murder was committed with a revolver. A revolver doesn't eject a fired cartridge."

"But a person who fires a revolver could eject a cartridge," Mason said.

"What do you mean?"

"If the murder was committed at nine o'clock, then someone who wanted a Patsy could have arranged to have Dutton out there at ten o'clock and then fired a shot the minute Duttoq's car hove into sight at the golf club. Then he could have tossed the gun to the ground beside the corpse and sneaked back down through the low places where he wouldn't show against the silhouetted horizon and made his escape, leaving Dutton to hold the sack."

"And so?" Drake asked.

"And so," Mason said, "we go out on the golf course and start exploring with a mine detector."

"This is right during the busy time of the afternoon as far as that golf course is concerned," Drake said. "Court adjourned early and if we go out there now, we'll interfere with a lot of doctors and dentists, bankers and professional men playing their mid-week round of golf."

Mason nodded.

"They'd kick us out," Drake said.

"Well?" Mason asked.

Drake looked at him and grinned. "You mean you'd like to attract attention?"

"Why not?"

"It wouldn't prove anything," Drake said.

"But the fact that we were out there looking for an extra shell would show that we attached considerable importance to Holbrook's testimony."

Drake thought the matter over for a while, then grinned. "I suppose you wouldn't object if the newspaper reporters knew about it?"

"Not at all," Mason said. "In fact, anything that we do might become quite newsworthy."

"The judge has instructed the jury not to read the newspapers," Drake said.

Mason looked at him and grinned, then turned to Della Street. "This, Della," he said, "is business. Go to the most exclusive, most expensive place in the city where you can get a sport outfit which will attract the roving masculine eye. Get a golfing outfit. Money is no object, but it has to be a city editor's dream-one that will look so good in a photograph, and on you, it would make a page one placement."

Della Street jumped to her feet. "Watch me go through that door," she said.

Chapter Twenty-One

A rather dignified group of afternoon golfers watched Perry Mason, Paul Drake, Della Street, and one of Drake's operatives as they marched across the golf links toward the seventh tee carrying a portable metal detector.

Mason smiled affably at the group waiting at the tee. "Don't let me disturb your game, gentlemen. We'll wait until you drive."

"Until we drive?" one of the men asked.

Mason smiled and nodded toward Drake's operative who was carrying the metal detector.

"What's that?" the golfer asked.

"You knew, of course, about the murder that had been committed here," Mason said. "We're looking for evidence."

"What sort of evidence?"

"We think perhaps there's- Well, perhaps it isn't wise to disclose my hand in advance. There's perhaps something here that will have a bearing on the case."

The golfers crowded around, their game forgotten.

"You're Perry Mason," one of the men said, "the famous attorney."

Mason bowed and smiled. "Paul Drake, my private detective, one of his operatives, and-most important of all-Miss Street, my confidential secretary."

Della Street, attired in a form-fitting short skirt which the wind whipped about her knees, gave the men her most engaging smile.

Other golfers came up.

"Well," Mason said to the operative, "we may as well go to work."

The man plugged earphones in his ears, set the electrical dials so they were in proper balance, then started moving slowly along through the taller grass to the sides of the teeing-off place.

Within a matter of moments, fifty spectators had formed in a ring.

On the tee someone said, "It's your honors."

"To hell with the golf," the man said. "This is a lot more exciting. I'll concede every hole from here on in and pay off at that price. Let's see what's happening."

Word passed like wildfire around the links. Soon the manager of the club came hurrying out to find out what was going on.

At first he was frowningly uncompromising. Then as he saw the interest of the golfers, he became mollified and, after a few moments, hurried toward the clubhouse.

Drake said in an undertone to Perry Mason, "He's suddenly become publicity conscious, Perry. He's headed for a telephone to call the press."

"Well," Mason said in an equally low tone, "I'm certain nothing that wesaid could have prompted that idea."

"Moreover," Drake added, "he's about thirty minutes too late."

Mason gave the detective a searching look. "Your ethics are showing, Paul."

"It's all right," Drake said. "Ifmy man should find anything, we'd have to tell the police about it, but there's nothing in the code of ethics which says I can't tell the press where I'm searching."

"As a lawyer," Mason said, "I couldn't use publicity in any way. lt would be unethical."

Drake grinned. "I knew why you wanted me along on this one-at least, I thought I did."

The man with the metal detector moved slowly along, weaving the flat pan back and forth just over the surface of the grass back toward the green on the sixth hole, then down along the edge of a sand trap into the rough; back to the sand trap again, then down into the rough.

Suddenly he said, "Hey, I've got something!"

"Well, let's see what it is," Mason said.

The man held the pan of the device directly over the spot.

Drake, down on his hands and knees, felt with exploring fingertips in the grass. "I've got it," he said, and came up with an empty brass cartridge case.

Mason said jubilantly, "Drive a peg of some sort in the ground at the exact place where that was found, Paul. Let's mark it."

Drake took a small metal surveyor's stake from the place where he had been carrying it in his belt and pushed it into the ground, then tied a bright red ribbon in the loop.

"Camera?" Mason asked.

Della Street handed Mason a camera.

The lawyer circled the place, taking a dozen pictures from all different angles, showing the location with reference to all the fixed landmarks.

Then the lawyer carefully dropped the cartridge case into a pocket formed in a pocket handkerchief. Drake scratched the case. Mason examined it with a pocket magnifier.

The crowd of golfers, pushing closer, were almost breathing down the necks of the triumphant searchers.

"Just what does this mean?" one of the golfers asked.

Mason said, "It means that we now have corroboration- Well, I hadn't better discuss it here."

The lawyer looked up with a smile that was all but cherubic in its innocence. "I wouldn't want to be accused of trying to influence public thinking," he said. "You can look in the papers tomorrow and find much more than I am in a position to tell you now."

Drake touched Mason's arm. "Let's go where we can talk," he said.

Mason nodded, took Paul Drake's arm and smiled affably at the circle of golfers.

"If you'll pardon us just for a minute," he said, "we have a matter to discuss."

Mason led Drake through the circle which opened for them and over toward the rough.