The Case of the Curious Bride (18 page)

"Was he going to testify against her?"

"I don't know anything about it. All I know is what the district attorney thought."

"How do you know what he thought?"

"Because of the questions he asked me."

"You were frightened?" asked Perry Mason.

"Yes, of course."

"What kind of a gun did the men have?"

"Automatics. Big black automatics."

Perry Mason got up from the desk, walked to the doors, made certain that they were closed, started pacing the office. "Look here," he said slowly, "Doctor Millsap didn't want to testify."

"Didn't he?"

"You know he didn't."

"Do I?"

"I think you do."

"Well, that's got nothing to do with his being kidnapped, has it?"

"I don't know," Perry Mason said thoughtfully. "I told him to take a sea trip for his health."

"But he couldn't. The district attorney served some papers on him."

Mason nodded. He strode up and down the office, watching the girl's quivering shoulders. Abruptly, he reached forward and snatched the handkerchief out of her hand. He raised it to his nostrils, took a deep inhalation.

She jumped to her feet, grabbed at his hand, missed it, clutched his arm, groped along the arm until she found his hand and tugged at the handkerchief. Mason held to the tear-sodden bit of linen. She got one corner of it and tugged frantically. There was the sound of tearing cloth, and then a corner of the handkerchief ripped loose in her hands. Mason retained the biggest portion of the handkerchief.

The lawyer brushed the back of his hand across his eyes and laughed grimly. There were tears in his own eyes, tears that commenced to trickle down his cheeks. "So that's it, is it?" he said. "You dropped a little tear-gas into your handkerchief before you came into my office."

She said nothing. "Did you," Mason asked, staring at her with tear-streaked eyes, "drop some tear-gas in your handkerchief when you talked with the police?"

"I didn't have to then," she said, her voice catching in a sob, "they f-f-f-rightened me so that I didn't have to."

"Did the police fall for this story?" Mason inquired.

"I think so, because they thought the men might have been detectives you'd employed. They're tracing all of the Buick cars in the city to see if any of them are owned by detectives who might be working for Paul Drake."

Mason stood staring at her. "Damn this tear-gas," he said; "it blurs my eyes."

"I got an awful dose of it," she confided.

"Was there any automobile?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Did any two men crowd you in to the curb in an automobile the way you said?"

"No. Doctor Millsap just went away. He wanted you to know that he wouldn't be a witness at the trial."

"If anything important develops," said Perry Mason, slowly, "could you reach him?"

"If anything important develops, you could telephone me," she said, "but be sure you talk plainly so I can recognize your voice, because otherwise I wouldn't believe it was you."

Perry Mason laughed, groped for a button on his desk and pressed it. Della slipped through the doorway from the outer office. "Della," said Perry Mason, "guide Mabel Strickland down to a taxicab."

Della Street gave a gasp. "My heavens, chief," she said, "you're crying!!!"

Perry Mason laughed. "It's contagious," he told her.

"The case of the People versus Rhoda Montaine," he said.

"Ready for the prosecution," Lucas snapped.

"And for the defendant."

Rhoda Montaine sat by a deputy sheriff. She was clad entirely in dark brown, relieved only by a white trimming at her throat and sleeves. The strain had told upon her, and her manner was nervous, her eyes were swift and darting as they shifted rapidly about the courtroom, but there was something in the tilt of her head, something in the set of her lips that proclaimed to even the most casual observer that, regardless of the strain, she would retain her poise and self-possession, even should the verdict of the jury be "murder in the first degree."

John Lucas glanced at the defendant and frowned. This was a dangerous attitude for any attorney to encourage in a woman who was accused of murder, far better to coach her to take advantage of all the prerogatives of her sex – to be feminine and weak; to apparently be on the verge of hysteria. A stern, capable woman might well commit murder; a feminine, delicate woman whose nerves were quivering from contact with a courtroom would be less likely to kill in cold blood.

The droning voice of the clerk called men to the jury box.

Lucas arose, made a brief statement of the nature of the case, looked up to Judge Markham.

"Under the law," said Judge Markham, "the Court is required to ask a few preliminary questions of the prospective jurors, touching their qualifications to act as jurors. Those questions may be supplemented by other questions from counsel." He turned to the jury and went through a ritual which was, so far as the selection of the jury was concerned, virtually without meaning.

He asked the jurors, in a tone of voice which indicated he was merely performing a meaningless chore, whether they had formed or expressed any opinion concerning the merits of the case; whether, if so, such an opinion would require evidence to remove, or whether, if they were selected as jurors, such opinion could be set aside and they could embark upon the trial of the case with a fair and open mind. As was to be expected, such questions brought out no disqualifications. The jurors, listening to the droning monotone of the judicial monologue, nodded their heads in silent acquiescence from time to time.

Judge Markham turned to counsel. "I am aware," he said, "that the legislature sought to expedite trials by providing that the Court should examine prospective jurors, and that this examination might be supplemented by questions asked by counsel. I am equally aware that within certain limits of propriety, an examination by counsel is far more efficacious than interrogations by the Court for the purpose of ascertaining the qualifications of jurors. The defense may inquire."

Judge Markham settled back in his seat, nodded to Mason.

Perry Mason got to his feet, turned to face the first juror who had been called to the box. "Mr. Simpson," he said, calling the juror by name, "you have stated that you can fairly and impartially act as a juror in this case?"

"Yes, sir."

"You have no bias, no prejudice one way or the other?"

"No, sir."

"You feel that you can treat the defendant in this case with fair impartiality?"

"I do."

Perry Mason's voice rose. His hands flung out in a dramatic gesture.

"In what I am about to say, Mr. Simpson," he said, "there is no personal implication; it is a question which I consider it my duty to ask on behalf of my client. It is a question which is necessitated by reason of the fact that legal histories fairly swarm with instances in which circumstantial evidence has brought about convictions predicated upon a fortuitous chain of circumstances, circumstances which have subsequently been completely clarified and found to have no sinister significance whatever, yet circumstances which have, in the meantime, resulted in the conviction of an innocent person. Therefore, I ask you, Mr. Simpson, if through some fortuitous chain of circumstances, you should find yourself unlucky enough to be placed in the chair now occupied by the defendant, charged with the crime of murder in the first degree, would you, or would you not, be willing to trust your fate in the hands of twelve persons who felt toward you as you now feel toward the defendant?"

The dazed juror, listening to the dramatic array of words, getting the general idea without the specific meaning of each and every word impressing itself upon him, slowly nodded his head.

"Yes," he said.

Perry Mason turned to the other members of the jury. "Is there any member of this jury," he said, "who would not answer that question as Mr. Simpson has answered it? If so, hold up your hand."

The other jurors had been waiting for the time when they would be singled out for a verbal heckling. Suddenly dazed by this swift turn of events, they looked from one to the other for mutual support. None of them fully understood the question. None of them felt like making himself conspicuous by holding up his hand.

Perry Mason turned to the Court with a triumphant smile. "Under the circumstances, your Honor, we could ask for nothing better than this jury. Pass for cause."

John Lucas jumped to his feet, his voice incredulous. "You mean," he asked, "that you're passing for cause in a murder case with no more examination than this?"

Judge Markham banged his gavel. "You heard the remark of counsel, Mr. Lucas," he said. But even the eyes of the magistrate sought Perry Mason's face in puzzled speculation. Judge Markham had seen enough of Mason's swift strategy in court to realize that the lawyer was playing for some master stroke, but he could not anticipate just what it was in this case.

John Lucas took a deep breath, swung his chair around and said, "Very well."

"You may examine the jurors," said Judge Markham.

And John Lucas proceeded to examine the jurors in detail. Very obviously he thought that Perry Mason had "planted" some very friendly person on that jury. Knowing the reputation of the man against whom he was pitted, Lucas saw no alternative other than to smoke this friendly juror out into the open; and he proceeded throughout the course of an interminably long afternoon to question the jurors as to their fairness and impartiality. And slowly the conviction was built up in the courtroom that Perry Mason, for the defense, had been satisfied to take the jurors' word for the fact that they were fair and impartial, but that the district attorney's office must heckle and browbeat them in an attempt to prove that they were liars. Before the afternoon had finished there was a distinct attitude of snarling hostility creeping into the manner of John Lucas.

Slowly Judge Markham's face relaxed. Once or twice, at some particularly flagrant example of mutual distrust between the questioner and the jurors, his face almost twisted into a smile, and, at time of the evening adjournment, he looked at Perry Mason with twinkling eyes.

John Lucas was still nagging at the jurors the next morning. By eleven o'clock he finished and passed for cause. Moreover, Lucas showed a recognition of the losing battle he had been waging by excusing four of the jurors under peremptory challenges. Whereas Perry Mason not only waived his peremptory challenges, but in doing so, commented that he had "been satisfied with the jury all along."

John Lucas had a reputation for mental agility and a deep learning in the law. He had been selected by the district attorney to enter the lists against the hitherto invincible Perry Mason because of that quickness of mind. Lucas had embarked upon the battle with a grim determination that Perry Mason was not going to slip anything over on him, and this determination, so very apparent to every one in the court room, blinded the deputy district attorney to the impression he was creating upon the jurors.

Perry Mason, apparently, was trying to slip nothing over on any one. He was calm, serene and courteous, belying the reputation which had grown up about him of being a legal trickster, a juggler who could manipulate facts as a puppeteer manipulates his dummy figures. Court attaches who knew the dazzling technique of the lawyer realized that when he seemed the most innocent was the time when he would bear the closest scrutiny. But, to members of the jury, it seemed that Mason had a calm confidence in his case and his client, while the prosecution felt decidedly dubious.

The afternoon session opened with John Lucas showing the strain; with Perry Mason, suave, courteous, apparently confident that the innocence of his client would become plainly discernible from the testimony.

Officer Harry Exter was called to the stand. He testified with the belligerent emphasis of a police officer who defies counsel for the defense to try to rattle him. He was, he said, a member of the police force of the city; was one of the officers who was assigned to a radio car beat in car 62; that at two twenty-eight A.M. on the morning of June 16th, he had picked up a call over the radio; that, in response to that call, he had made a quick run to the Colemont Apartments at 316 Norwalk Avenue; that he had entered the apartment and found therein a man in an unconscious condition; that he had summoned an ambulance and that the man had been removed; that, thereafter, the witness had remained in the apartment until a photographer had arrived and taken a photograph; until after fingerprint men had gone over the apartment looking for fingerprints; that no one, save the police, had entered the apartment from the time he arrived, that he had noticed a leather key container, in which were several keys, on the floor; that they lay slightly under the bed on the carpet; that he would know those keys if he saw them again.

Lucas produced a leather key container, held it toward Perry Mason, jingled the keys.

"Do you desire to inspect this, Counselor?" he asked.

Perry Mason shook his head. He seemed utterly indifferent.

The witness took the keys and identified them as the keys that he had discovered in the apartment. The keys were introduced as People's Exhibit A. The witness identified photographs of the room in which the body had been found, indicated the position of the body, and, when he had testified to various details, was turned over to Perry Mason for cross-examination.

Perry Mason raised neither his voice nor his eyes. He sat slumped in his chair, his head bowed. "There was an alarm clock in the room?" he asked in a conversational tone of voice.

"Yes."

"What became of it?"

"It was taken as evidence."

"Who took it?"

"One of the men on the homicide squad."

"Would you know the alarm clock if you saw it again?"

"Yes."

Perry Mason turned to John Lucas. "You have the alarm clock?" he asked.

"We have it," said Lucas, puzzled.

"Will you produce it?" asked Perry Mason.

"When we are ready," John Lucas said.

Perry Mason shrugged his shoulders, turned his attention once more to the witness. "Did you notice anything about this alarm clock?" he asked.

"Yes."

"What was it?"

"The alarm had been set for two o'clock in the morning, or perhaps a minute or two before two o'clock."

"The clock was running?"

"It was."

"Look at the photograph," said Perry Mason, "and see if the photograph, People's Exhibit B. shows the alarm clock."

"It does," said the witness.

"Would you mind pointing it out to the jury?"

There was a craning of necks as the jurors leaned forward and the witness, holding the photograph in his hand, pointed out the alarm clock.

"Might I ask to have the alarm clock produced now?" asked Perry Mason.

"It will be produced when we are ready to produce it," John Lucas remarked.

Perry Mason looked at Judge Markham. "I would like," he said, "to cross-examine this witness upon the alarm clock."

"The alarm clock has not been definitely brought into the case by the prosecution, as yet," Judge Markham said. "I think I will not force the prosecution to put on its case out of order. If, after the alarm clock is produced, you desire to examine this witness further, he may be recalled for further cross-examination."

"Very well," said Perry Mason listlessly, "I have no more questions."

John Lucas forged rapidly ahead. He called members of the homicide squad, members of the ambulance crew. He established the death of the man who had been taken from the apartment, introduced the poker which had been found in the apartment, with the gruesome stains of blood and the bits of hair adhering to the encrustations.

Perry Mason sat motionless, like some huge bear lying asleep in the sunlight and taking no notice of the circling approach of hunters. He asked no questions upon cross-examination.

Bit by bit John Lucas built up his case, and then he called Frank Lane to the witness stand. Frank Lane was a bright, alert young man of some twenty-five years of age. He testified to his name, address and gave his occupation as that of employee in a service station, giving the location of the service station and identifying it with reference to the residence of Rhoda Montaine. He was then asked if he had seen Rhoda Montaine on the morning of the sixteenth of June of the present year, and answered crisply in the affirmative.