“I’m afraid it’s a perfectly devastating case,” she said, “even if they don’t know everything about the background.”

  “They won’t necessarily try to prove motivation at a preliminary hearing,” Mason said. “Where did you get the gun?”

  “My husband got it.”

  “Where? When?”

  “He bought it several years ago.”

  “From a friend or from a firearms dealer?”

  “I believe from a firearms dealer. He wanted a gun to keep in the house.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “we’ll do the best we can. You sit tight and make absolutely no comment about anything. As far as possible adopt the position that you are too prostrated to submit to interviews. Don’t let any newspapermen in the house, don’t answer the telephone yourself, and if you should be cornered by any person who wants an interview, don’t let that person trap you into making any statement of any sort other than the two words ‘no comment’. Use those words whenever you open your mouth. Think you can do that?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “It’s not going to be as easy as you think,” Mason said. “They’ll suddenly throw questions at you or make definite assertions of things that aren’t true and try to catch you by surprise. Simply remember and say ‘no comment’ and keep saying ‘no comment’. In that way you can help your husband. Otherwise you may inadvertently hurt him.”

  “I’ll try,” she said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Judge Romney Saxton took his position on the bench and said, “The case of the People of the State of California versus Horace Warren. This is a preliminary examination for murder. Is the case ready to be heard?”

  “Ready for the defence,” Perry Mason said.

  Hamilton Burger got to his feet. “If the Court please, in announcing that we are ready for the prosecution I wish to state that my trial deputy, Alpheus Randolph, will assist me in presenting the case.

  “I am aware that an opening statement is not usually made in connection with a preliminary hearing. I am also aware my personal appearance in a preliminary examination is highly unusual, but this is an unusual case. Because of the peculiar circumstances surrounding this hearing, I desire to make a statement to the Court so that the Court will understand the purpose of the evidence we are introducing and how it fits into an overall pattern.

  “We have, for instance, been unable to find a motivation for murder in the evidence in this case except by implication and by circumstantial evidence.

  “We propose to introduce that circumstantial evidence and let the Court draw its own conclusions.

  “We shall be able to show that on the night of the third of this month an attempted murder was committed in connection with the hold-up of the main branch of the Pacific Northern Supermarket in this city. There were two witnesses who saw the murderer.

  “Mr Perry Mason, who is the attorney for the defendant in this case, employed an artist to make a sketch of the decedent; this was done in advance of any interview with those witnesses and before hearing any description given by those witnesses.

  “The circumstantial evidence indicated conclusively that Mr Mason intended to use this to exert pressure to bear on the decedent, Collister Gideon.

  “Gideon had been convicted of a felony previously and had but recently been released from the federal prison. Knowing that a person of Mr Mason’s influence was intending to frame an attempted murder charge on him, he could conceivably have been expected to panic.”

  “Now, just a minute,” Judge Saxton interrupted. “This is a serious charge. Are you intimating that Mr Mason was framing an attempted murder case on the decedent?”

  “That is what I said, Your Honour.”

  “And that he tampered with the testimony of witnesses?”

  “That is my charge and I expect to prove it by way of motivation.”

  “That is a most serious charge,” Judge Saxton said.

  “The proof will substantiate the charge,” Hamilton Burger asserted.

  Judge Saxton’s mouth set in a grim line. “Very well,” he said. “Proceed with your statement.”

  “We will prove,” Hamilton Burger went on, “that the decedent, Collister Gideon, was killed by a thirty-eight calibre revolver which was found in the possession of the defendant, that the defendant was found hiding at the scene of the murder. On the strength of that evidence we will ask for an order binding the defendant over to the Superior Court for trial.”

  “Very well,” Judge Saxton said. “Does the defence wish to make an opening statement?”

  Perry Mason got to his feet. “The defence wishes to make this statement: The defendant is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty. I am presumed innocent until I have been proven guilty.

  “The defence would like to have the Court keep in mind that any suggestion made to a witness is not necessarily an unlawful attempt to get a witness to falsify his testimony.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry abut this Court understanding the fundamentals of criminal law, Mr Mason. The People will proceed.”

  Hamilton Burger said, “If the Court please, under the unusual circumstances of this case, I am going to call Mr Drew Kearny as my first witness because I want to lay the foundation for showing the motivation in this case.”

  “Do I understand Mr Kearny’s testimony goes to motivation?”

  “Yes, Your Honour.”

  “In what way?”

  “We propose to show that the defendant, through his attorney, Perry Mason, was trying to frame an attempted murder charge on Collister Gideon, the decedent in this case.”

  “The Court is very much interested in that evidence,” Judge Saxton said. “Mr Drew Kearny will come forward and be sworn.”

  Kearny came forward, held up his right hand, was sworn, gave his name, address, his occupation.

  “You have a store in this city?”

  “A small store, yes sir. I have a store and shop combined. I do electrical repair work and sell some electrical goods.”

  “Now, do you have occasion to remember the third of this month?”

  “I do, yes, sir.”

  “Where were you on that date?”

  “Well, actually it was just a few minutes past midnight so I suppose technically it was on the morning of the fourth,” Kearny said. “I had been to a late movie and was walking home.”

  “Are you familiar with the location of the Pacific Northern Supermarket at 1026 Haliston Avenue?”

  “I am, yes, sir.”

  “Did your route take you past that supermarket?”

  “It did. Yes, sir.”

  “While you were there did anything unusual happen?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What?”

  “The front door of the market opened, a man came running out and almost collided with me.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “This man held a revolver in his hand. He put the revolver in front of me and told me to put up my hands.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I put up my hands.”

  “Did the man make any other statements?”

  “I had assumed it was a hold-up and–”

  “Never mind what you had assumed. The question is: Did the man make any other statements?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Keep them up.’”

  “Then what did he do?”

  “He started backing away from me, moving rather rapidly backwards until he was nearly two-thirds of the way across the street. Then he suddenly turned and ran as fast as he could down the alley.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I tried the door of the store. It was locked. There was a spring lock on the inside, but I sensed something was wrong and I started for a telephone. I wanted to get there as fast as I could and notify the police.”

  “You were familiar with the neighbourhood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you know where the nearest telephone was located?”

  “Well now, I’m not certain that it was the nearest telephone but I knew there was a telephone booth at a service station about three blocks down the street, so I started running.”

  “How fast were you running?”

  The witness grinned. “As fast as I could at the start, but I slowed down pretty quick. I used to do some sprinting but I found out I was pretty badly out of shape. I slowed down to a jog-trot after a couple of blocks and then I heard the siren and saw the red light of this police car coming, so I ran out in the middle of the street, waved my hands and flagged it down.”

  “All right, we’ll pass up what happened after that for the moment,” Burger said, “and go on to what happened later on.”

  “Well, you mean about the sketch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, a man whose name was Farley Fulton came to call on me. He had a sketch, a pencil sketch, and he showed it to me and asked me if that was the man I had seen … Well now, wait a minute. There was some conversation before that. First he asked me generally to describe the man I’d seen. He told me he was a private detective and showed me his credentials, and then he showed me this sketch and asked me if that wasn’t a picture of the man I had seen and if the physical description wasn’t a match.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I looked at the sketch and told him no, that wasn’t the man.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, he became rather insistent. He told me that there was no question about it, that was the man; that the night watchman had said it was a perfect likeness.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, I told him I didn’t think so, but I got worrying about it, thinking about it. Frankly it bothered me a lot. I’d been held up before and I didn’t want–”

  “Now, never mind that. Never mind your thoughts or your background,” Hamilton Burger interrupted. “Just what did you do?”

  “Well, I went to the office of Paul Drake, the detective who employed Farley Fulton, and I asked him if I could see that sketch again. Well, he put through a telephone call to Mr Mason and asked him–”

  “Now, just a minute,” Hamilton Burger interrupted, “when you say Mr Mason, you mean Mr Perry Mason, the attorney representing the defence in this case?”

  “That’s the one. Yes, sir.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Well, he called Mr Mason, and Mason had us come down to his office and when we got down there Mason talked with me himself.”

  “And what was the tenor of Mason’s conversation?”

  “Objected to as calling for a conclusion of the witness,” Mason said.

  “Sustained,” Judge Saxton snapped.

  “Well, what did Mason say to you?”

  “Well, I can’t remember all that he said, but I remember he showed me the picture and I told him that the man I had seen was older and heavier and taller, and he told me that experience showed that under such circumstances witnesses almost invariably described the man as being older and heavier and taller and more powerfully built than the actual criminal.”

  “In other words, he was trying to get you to identify this sketch?”

  “Just a moment, Your Honour,” Mason said. “I object to the question as leading and suggestive, and calling for a conclusion of the witness.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Saxton said. “Mr District Attorney, in a matter of this importance kindly refrain from asking leading questions.”

  “Well, I think it was obvious what was happening,” Hamilton Burger said. “I was simply trying to summarize the situation.”

  “Just let the evidence come in by question and answer,” Judge Saxton said, “and there will be no need to summarize the situation.”

  “At any time did Mr Mason ask you to identify this sketch?”

  “Well, I can’t remember exactly that he said those exact words. I know what he was trying to get me to do, but–”

  “Move to strike out the answer as not being responsive to the question,” Mason interposed.

  “Sustained. Motion granted.”

  “Did Mr Mason at any time ask you to identify this sketch?”

  “I thought he did. I was certain that’s what he was trying to get me to do.”

  “Move to strike out the answer as not being responsive and being a conclusion of the witness,” Mason said.

  “Motion granted.”

  “Well,” Hamilton Burger said, “getting back to your own mind now. Did your conversation with Mason raise any doubt in your mind as to the identity of the man you had seen?”

  “It did.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, I thought I knew what the man looked like pretty well, but after I’d seen that sketch half a dozen times and after they’d talked with me about it, I began to get a little dubious.”

  “Did you say anything to Mr Mason which indicated such was the case?”

  “I told him that there was something wrong with the picture of the fellow’s mouth but the eyes were beginning to look a little familiar. They looked like somebody I had seen somewhere.”

  “And what did Mr Mason say with reference to that statement?”

  “He seemed quite gratified.”

  “Never mind what he seemed,” Hamilton Burger said. “I’m asking you what he said.”

  “Well, he told me that it was very important to get the right man and that I was to search my recollection and do the best I could.”

  Hamilton Burger looked at Perry Mason. “We can stipulate that that sketch was one of Collister Gideon, Mr Mason?”

  “We can stipulate nothing of the sort,” Mason said. “If you want to prove your case, go ahead and prove it.”

  “If I have to, I can put the artist on the stand and show that he made the sketch from a picture of Collister Gideon and that in doing so he was acting under instructions.”

  “And how are you going to show that was the same sketch that was exhibited to his witness?”

  “Oh,” Hamilton Burger said irritably, “if you want to drag this thing out in a last-ditch fight, go ahead. Actually I have a photographic copy of the original sketch made by the artist in my office.”

  “That’s not the one that was shown to the witness here,” Mason said.

  Judge Saxton said, “Well, I can appreciate, in a matter of this importance, counsel wants to protect his rights. Why don’t you excuse this witness, get the artist to produce a copy of the sketch and bring it here this afternoon?”

  “I’ll do that,” Hamilton Burger said, “but I’d like to tie up the testimony of the witness.”

  He turned to Kearny. “Did you subsequently see a photograph of Collister Gideon?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And was this sketch that Mr Mason’s detective, Farley Fulton, showed you a likeness of Collister Gideon?”

  “Just a moment,” Mason said. “Let’s get this thing in its proper sequence. That question calls for a conclusion of the witness, and furthermore you can’t ask that question unless you can first show how he knows the picture he saw was that of Collister Gideon. If his knowledge was based on hearsay statements, you cannot connect the picture up in that way.”

  Hamilton Burger made a gesture of surrender. “All right,” he said, “all right, all right. If the Court please, I ask to withdraw this witness until this afternoon and substitute Lieutenant Tragg.”

  “Just a moment,” Judge Saxton said. “The Court would like to ask this witness a few questions.”

  Keamy looked up at Judge Saxton.

  “You were interrogated by the police about what you had seen on the night of the third and the early morning of the fourth?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I suppose that by the time the morning papers came out you knew the nature of the crime that had been committed?”

  “Yes, Your Honour.”

  “And you read those papers?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In other words,” Judge Saxton said, “you didn’t get very much sleep that night.”

  “I didn’t get to bed until about three-thirty.”

  “And then this detective showed you this picture?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did he say anything about the picture when he showed it to you?”

  “I think he said that it was a composite sketch made by a police artist.”

  Judge Saxton’s face was grim. “I think,” he said, “we’ll let this witness go until this afternoon and you may call your next witness.”

  “We call Lieutenant Tragg,” Hamilton Burger said.

  Tragg came forward and was sworn, testified as to his name, address, occupation, and the fact that he had been a police lieutenant in the department of homicide for some years.

  “On the fourth of this month did you have occasion to go to a deserted storeroom at the corner of Clovina Avenue and Hendersell in this city?”

  “I did.”

  “What was the occasion of your making such a trip?”

  “Someone had turned in a fire alarm. There had been no fire, but the fire department had found a body in the building and had reported accordingly, and as a result I made a trip.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I found the body of a man whom we subsequently identified as Collister D Gideon, dead apparently from a gunshot wound, in a section of the storeroom which had evidently been fitted up as surreptitious living quarters. There were cases of canned goods, cooking utensils, a small solid-fuel stove, pans, and eating utensils. There were towels, soap, and other housekeeping facilities.”

  “Was water on in the building?”

  “Yes, sir. Water was on in the building. It was connected to a large sink and also to a toilet.”

  “What else can you tell us about this building?”

  “In back of the storeroom and as a part of the property, was a fairly large warehouse building.”

  “Was this filled with merchandise?”

  “No, sir. Not with merchandise, but there was a large number of empty cardboard cartons, some of them quite large. These had not been hauled away but were stacked in several piles in the warehouse.”