The Case of the Sulky Girl (23 page)

"That is correct, yes sir."

"As a matter of fact, Mr. Crinston, wasn't that conference in the nature of a quarrel?"

"No sir, I don't think I can add anything to the statement that I made before, as to what was said at that time."

"Mr. Crinston, the partnership has an indebtedness at the Wheeler's Trust & Savings Bank of some nine hundred thousand dollars?"

"Yes sir."

"With deposits in that bank of only seventy-five thousand dollars."

"Yes sir, approximately that amount."

"Yet it has deposits of eight hundred and seventy-six odd thousand dollars at the Seaboard Second National Trust Company, and deposits of approximately two hundred and ninety-three thousand dollars at the Farmers & Merchants National Bank?"

"Yes sir."

"Now, Mr. Crinston, isn't it a fact that the indebtedness of nine hundred thousand dollars which was incurred at the Wheeler's Trust & Savings Bank on a promissory note which bears only your signature, was money that was borrowed without the knowledge of Mr. Norton, and was money that was not used for partnership purposes, but was used solely for your own individual speculations in the stock market?"

"No sir!" snapped Arthur Crinston. "That is not the case."

"Why was it necessary for the partnership to borrow nine hundred thousand dollars from one bank, when it had over a million in liquid assets in other banks?"

"That was because of certain business policies. We had some large purchases we were intending to make, and we desired to keep cash assets to that amount on deposit in those banks. We didn't wish to borrow from that particular bank or those particular banks, because we wanted to keep our cash there readily available. If we had made a large note at those banks and checked out all of our cash, there would have been some explanation required. Therefore, inasmuch as the Wheeler's Trust & Savings Bank had been very anxious to get our account, and had intimated that we could have an unlimited amount of short term credit, we executed the notes there."

"It is a fact, Mr. Crinston, is it not, that those notes at the Wheeler's Trust & Savings Bank came due some two days prior to Mr. Norton's death?"

"I believe so, yes sir."

"And the bank sent out notices through the mail, did it not?"

"I believe so, yes sir."

"And isn't it a fact that Mr. Norton received one of those notices on the day that he was killed?"

"I'm sure I can't tell you, sir."

"Isn't it a fact that on that day Mr. Norton knew for the first time of the indebtedness at this bank?"

"No sir."*

"Isn't it a fact that Mr. Norton called you into conference that evening in order to tell you that he had given you a certain limited time to make restitution to the partnership, and, you having failed to make such restitution, Mr. Norton was going to notify the police?"

The spectators could see that Mr. Crinston was visibly worried. His face had turned a few shades whiter, and his knuckles showed white as his hand clenched tightly, but his voice remained even and steady.

"Absolutely not," he snapped.

"And," persisted Perry Mason in the same even, imperturbable tone, "isn't it a fact that when you advised Mr. Norton that you had been unable to make restitution, and could not do so, he took down the telephone receiver called police headquarters and said: 'This is Edward Norton speaking. I have a criminal matter to report to you,' or words to that effect?"

"No sir," snapped Arthur Crinston, and his voice now, for the first time, showed the strain under which he was laboring.

"And," said Perry Mason, slowly rising to his feet, "isn't it a fact that when he had made that statement, you crashed a club down on his head and caved in his skull!"

"I object!" shouted Claude Drumm, getting to his feet. "This examination has gone too far afield. There is absolutely no ground for…"

"The objection is overruled," snapped Judge Markham. "Answer the question, Mr. Crinston."

"No, I did nothing of the kind!" shouted Arthur Crinston.

Perry Mason stood on his feet, staring at Arthur Crinston until the courtroom had grasped the full significance of the question, and all that it implied, until the spectators, leaning breathlessly forward, had made of the courtroom a vault of silence.

"And," said Perry Mason, "isn't it a fact that you then placed the receiver back on the hook, stared tremblingly about you, and suddenly realized that Edward Norton had given his name to police headquarters when he made his call and stated that he had a criminal matter to report – didn't you know then that when the body of Edward Norton was discovered, the police would check back and find a record of that call, knowing then the exact time that Mr. Norton had been killed, and being able to surmise something of the motive for his murder?"

"No sir," gulped Arthur Crinston, but his forehead was glistening in the light which came from the high windows of the courtroom, as the beads of perspiration oozed through his skin.

"And isn't it a fact that with the consciousness of guilt upon you, you knew that it was necessary to explain that call to the police in some way; that you saw the insurance policy lying on his desk; that you knew this insurance policy lay there because Mr. Norton, who was very methodical, had intended to make certain that the insurance had been renewed before the expiration date. Isn't it a fact that this insurance policy gave you an inspiration, and that you immediately called back the Police Headquarters and stated to the desk sergeant that you were Mr. Norton, who had just called; that you had been cut off, and that you desired to report the theft of an automobile, and that you then and there read the description of the Buick automobile from the insurance policy which lay upon Mr. Norton's desk?"

"No sir," said Arthur Crinston in a tone of mechanical defiance.

"And isn't it a fact that then the door opened, and Don Graves came into the room; that Don Graves had been your accomplice and assistant in connection with the embezzlement of the nine hundred thousand odd dollars which you had lost in speculations upon the stock market, using partnership funds to cover your individual losses? And isn't it a fact that you and Don Graves then and there fixed up a plan by which the murder of Mr. Norton would be blamed upon others?"

"No sir," came the same mechanical denial.

"Isn't it a fact that you knew that Judge Purley did not know Edward Norton personally, and therefore would not recognize his voice from the voice of any other man? Isn't it a fact that you and your accomplice, Don Graves, sneaked down to the room of Pete Devoe, the chauffeur, and planted evidence in that room which would have a tendency to connect Devoe with the murder? Isn't it a fact that you jimmied a window and left footprints in the loam on the soil outside of the window so that it would appear that Mr. Devoe had made a clumsy attempt to divert suspicion from himself?

"Isn't it a fact that you then went back to the study where the dead man was slumped across his desk, and that you arranged with Mr. Graves so that you were to go down the stairs and start for Judge Purley's automobile; that Mr. Graves was to raise the window in Mr. Norton's study, keeping the desk light well to his back, so that Judge Purley would see nothing but the blurred outline of a human form, and that Mr. Graves, pretending to be Edward Norton, would call down and ask you to take Don Graves in the automobile to your home, and that you then and there arranged that you would go to ask Judge Purley for his permission, and that Don Graves would then move away from the window, rush downstairs, and be standing by your side, while you pretended to call up to Mr. Norton, whom you pretended that you could see in the window, saying that it was all right, and Judge Purley had given his permission?"

"No sir," said Arthur Crinston.

"That," said Perry Mason, in tones that rang through the courtroom until they seemed to make the rafters in the ceiling vibrate, "is all the cross-examination I have of this witness."

Judge Markham glanced at Claude Drumm.

"Is there any redirect examination, counselor?" he asked.

Claude Drumm made a sweeping gesture. "None, Your Honor. A very pretty theory has been advanced, but there has been no evidence to support it. The witness has denied…"

Judge Markham banged his gavel on the desk.

"Counselor," he said, "you will make your argument to the jury at the proper time. The question of the court was whether there was any additional redirect examination. Your answer was in the negative, and the witness will stand aside."

"Recall Judge Purley for further cross-examination," said Perry Mason.

Judge Purley came to the witness stand. Gone was the judicial assurance which had clothed his manner earlier in the trial. His face was drawn and strained, and there was a haunting doubt in his eyes.

"You also have been sworn in this case, so there is no necessity for you to be sworn again," said Perry Mason. "Take your place on the witness stand."

Judge Purley heaved his big bulk into the witness chair.

"When this test was being made over the week end," said Perry Mason, in the tone of voice of one who is pronouncing a final and solemn judgment, "you sat in your automobile under the window of Edward Norton's study, in exactly the same place and position as that you occupied on the night of the murder, did you not?"

"I did, sir; yes, sir."

"And from that position, by craning your neck, you could see the study windows in Edward Norton's house?"

"Yes, sir."

"But because the top of the automobile was so low as to interfere with your vision, you could only see those windows by craning your neck, is that right?"

"Yes, sir."

"And isn't it a fact, Judge Purley, that while you were seated there in that automobile, in exactly the same position that it occupied on the night of the murder, Don Graves came to the window of the study and called down to you, or to Claude Drumm, who was with you in the car?"

"Yes, sir," said Judge Purley, taking a deep breath.

"And isn't it a fact," thundered Perry Mason, extending his rigid forefinger, so that it pointed directly at Judge Purley, "that now the matter has been called to your attention, and your recollection has had an opportunity to check over the circumstances of what happened upon that fateful night of the murder, that you now realize that the voice which called down to you from that second story window on the night of the test, was the same voice which had called down from that window on the night of the murder?"

Tense, dramatic silence gripped the courtroom.

Judge Purley's hands tugged at the arm of the witness chair, and his face writhed in agony.

"My God!" he said. "I don't know! I have been asking myself that question for the last ten minutes, and I cannot answer it satisfactorily to my conscience. All I know is that it may have been!"

Perry Mason turned half around and faced the jury. His steady, unwavering eyes surveyed the faces of the nine men and the three women.

"That," he said, in a tone of finality, "is all."

For a long moment the courtroom remained silent, then there were rustlings, whispering, half-gasps. Somewhere in the background a woman tittered hysterically.

Judge Markham banged his gavel down on the desk.

"Order!" he said.

Claude Drumm bit his lip in an agony of indecision. Dare he go into the matter on redirect examination, or dare he wait until he could talk privately with the Municipal Judge?

And, in that moment of indecision, in that moment when the attention of every human being in the courtroom was fastened upon him, Claude Drumm hesitated for one second too long.

The attention of the crowd shifted.

Perry Mason, leaning back in his chair, his eyes placidly surveying the sea of faces, saw it shift. Judge Markham, sitting on the bench, wise in the ways of the courtroom, veteran of a hundred murder trials, saw it shift.

As with one motion, as though actuated by some subtle, psychic command, the eyes of the jurors, the eyes of the spectators, turned away from Claude Drumm, and fastened themselves upon the agonized face of Arthur Crinston.

It was the silent verdict of the courtroom, and that verdict exonerated the two defendants, and fixed the guilt of Edward Norton's murder squarely upon Arthur Crinston and his accomplice.

Frances Celane sat in the big black leather chair, her forefinger poking and twisting as she slid it along the smooth arm of the chair. Her eyes were dark and filled with emotion.

Robert Gleason stood leaning against the book case, his heavy, dark face twisted into that agony of silence which comes to those inarticulate men who have much to say, yet cannot find a means of expression.

Through the open windows, from the street below, came the cries of the newsboys, shouting their extra edition of the STAR.

Perry Mason tapped the newspaper on his desk; a paper which was still damp from the presses.

"That," he said, "is clever journalism. Nevers had that paper on the street before you had gone from the courthouse to my office. He had the thing all figured out and blocked out. All he needed to do was to add a brief summary of the testimony of Judge Purley, and the headlines."

He slid his forefinger along the headlines which streamed blackly across the top of the newspaper: "MURDER CASE DISMISSED."

Frances Celane said softly: "It wasn't the journalism in this case that was so remarkable, Mr. Mason; it was your wonderful analysis of what must have happened, and the steps you took to reconstruct the scene so that Judge Purley would be convinced. I watched him when he was on the witness stand the first time, and I could see the problem that you had with him."

Perry Mason smiled.

"Judge Purley," he said, "is rather opinionated, and he would very much have disliked having to confess himself in error. In fact, if I had asked him that question the first time he was on the witness stand, he would have indignantly denied that such could have been the case, and the denial would have so impressed itself upon his own mind, that no amount of subsequent testimony could ever have caused him even to entertain the faintest notion that he might have been mistaken.

"But the fact that I managed to duplicate the conditions in such a manner that his mind was totally unprepared for what was taking place, gave me the opportunity to approach him on a blind side, so to speak.

"Of course," went on Perry Mason, "I had all of the facts in hand at the moment that Arthur Crinston, in telling me about the murder, discussed the telephone call to the police as though he had no knowledge of it, except what he had learned through the police.

"That was the slip that Crinston made, and the fatal slip; that, and failing to report that telephone conversation in his testimony to the jury.

"You see, he was so obsessed with the idea that he must keep the authorities from knowing what had transpired in that room when Norton was murdered, that he made up a story out of whole cloth, and stuck to it.

"That is not skillful lying. It is not the proper way to commit perjury. The skillful perjurer is he who sticks to so much of the truth as is possible, and only departs from it when it becomes absolutely necessary. These men who make up stories out of whole cloth usually leave a few loose threads somewhere.

"Yet it is a strange thing about the human mind: It has many facts constantly thrust upon it, and it doesn't properly correlate those facts. I had the facts at my command for some time before I knew what must have happened.

"You see, Crinston had borrowed heavily on the partnership credit. The partnership was, of course, solvent, but Crinston's credit as an individual was all shot to pieces. He had made Graves an accomplice, and, together, they were deceiving your uncle; but when the bank sent the notice to your uncle, then Edward Norton learned for the first time what had happened.

"We can imagine what happened next. He gave Mr. Crinston a definite deadline, at which time Crinston was to have returned the money, or else be reported to the police. When Crinston failed to make the payment, your uncle, acting with that cold-blooded efficiency which is so absolutely merciless, picked up the telephone and called Police Headquarters.

"Crinston sat there behind him, watching dumbly, knowing that the words which Norton was to say next would lead to his confinement in a penal institution. He heard Norton say: 'Police Headquarters, I have a criminal matter to report,' and then Crinston acted upon a blind, murderous impulse. He struck Norton down without warning and probably without any great amount of premeditation.

"When he had done that and hung up the receiver, he suddenly realized that the police must have a record of that call which Norton had sent in, and that this would lead to his detection. So he did a very clever thing. He called Police Headquarters right back, and pretended that he was Norton. He had to have something to report in the nature of a criminal matter, because your uncle had already said that he had such a report to make.

"The policy of automobile insurance was lying on the desk, and Arthur Crinston plunged blindly into that lead. Then, when you heard of your uncle's murder, and knowing that Rob Gleason had been in the house with you, and that there might be some possibility you would either be implicated, or have to explain what Gleason was doing there, you seized at what seemed to be the best opportunity to establish an alibi for yourself, by stating that you had been driving the Buick automobile at the time that your uncle reported it lost.

"On the face of it, it was almost mathematical. In other words, a man with a trained mind, sitting down and concentrating upon the evidence, should have been able to point his finger to the murderer at once. Yet I confess that the circumstances were so romantic and so unusual that I was confused for some little time, and failed to realize what must have happened.

"When I did realize it, I knew that I was up against a most serious problem. I felt certain that I could explain my theory well enough to raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury, and get either an acquittal or a hung jury, but I realized also that unless I could trap the murderers into betraying themselves, I could never entirely remove the stigma of doubt from your names.

"I recognized at once that Judge Purley was the key witness, and knew that the man's conceit and love of posture, would render any ordinary cross-examination futile. Therefore, I had to devise some means by which a doubt would be raised in his own mind before he knew that the doubt was there, and then crash it home to him with dramatic force."

Fran Celane got to her feet with tears showing in her eyes.

"I can't begin to tell you," she said, "what it has meant to me. It's been an experience that will always leave its imprint."

Perry Mason's eyes narrowed. "You're lucky," he said, in a tone of tolerant patience, "to have escaped with nothing but an unpleasant experience."

Frances Celane smiled and blinked tears back as she smiled. "I didn't mean it that way, Mr. Mason. I meant that it has been an experience I wouldn't have missed for anything!"

He stared at her.

"I mean it," she said. "Not the murder trial, but the being in jail, getting a glimpse of the sufferings of other people. It gave me a chance to see things in a different light. I think it's helped cure my fiendish temper.

"And then it brought out the loyalty in Rob. He knew that I couldn't be guilty, but he knew that the evidence was against me, and that I stood a chance of being convicted. In those dark hours when you didn't take us into your confidence and things seemed to be stacking up so much against us, he came forward and was willing to give his life to save mine."

"Yes," said Perry Mason, looking thoughtfully at Rob Gleason, "it was a noble and magnanimous thing to do, but if I hadn't been sure of my theory of the case, he would have thrown me entirely off my stride. His confession was most convincing, save for the fact that he claimed he had taken the thousand dollar bills from the body. I knew that he couldn't have done that, because you had given me ten of those bills the next morning. And then you, Miss Celane, weren't frank with me. You kept certain things back, trying to protect yourself."

"I know it," she told him. "It was all on account of that first lie about the Buick automobile. I couldn't tell the truth after that. I grabbed at the story about being out in the automobile as the best way to prove an alibi, and then I found I was trapped. I couldn't even tell you about getting the money from my uncle, because I was supposed to have been out in the automobile at that time."

There was a knock at the door, and Della Street entered the room.

She looked at Perry Mason with eyes that were starry with pride. When she spoke, her voice had something of caressing tenderness in it.

"There is a telegram for you," she said.

Frances Celane walked quickly across to Perry Mason and extended her hand.

"Rob and I will be going," she said, "and there's no use trying to tell you how much we appreciate what you've done. We can compensate you financially, but in addition to that we want you to know…"

Her voice shook, and there were tears in her eyes.

Perry Mason gripped her hand, then nodded. "I know," he said.

When the door leading from his private office to the corridor had closed on them, he turned to Della Street.

"Here," she said, "is the telegram. If you can make sense from it, you can do more than I can."

He took the telegram and read:

SENDING YOU SPECIAL DELIVERY AIR MAIL PHOTOGRAPH OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE IN CASE I AM ABOUT TO PRESENT. KEEP PHOTOGRAPH AND AWAIT ME IN YOUR OFFICE WITHOUT FAIL.

(Signed) EVA LAMONT.

Perry Mason stared at the telegram curiously.

"Did the photograph come?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, "a few minutes ago." She opened a drawer in her desk and took out a photograph. It was the photograph of a young woman, generously displaying a beautiful pair of legs. Below the photograph was a typewritten caption which had been pasted to it. The caption said, simply: "THE GIRL WITH THE LUCKY LEGS."

The photograph did not show the woman's face, merely her shoulders, hips, arms, hands, which held the skirts very, very high, and the legs. They were slim, straight legs, perfectly formed, stockinged and gartered.

"Now," said Perry Mason, his curiosity aroused, "what the devil does that mean?"

"I don't know," said Della Street, "but I'm going to make a file – The Case of the Girl With the Lucky Legs."

Perry Mason looked at his watch. The weariness had dropped from his face, and his eyes were sparkling.

"I wonder," he said, "just what time Eva Lamont is due here."