“That’ll do,” Burger interrupted. “Watch yourself, Lieutenant. We’re here to get information, not to give it. And I prefer to carry on our own arguments in privacy, not where Mr. Perry Mason can drink everything in with the idea that he can capitalize on the things we don’t know.”

  Mason arose. “I take it then, the interview is at an end?” he said. “My client has refused to answer any more questions. I have answered your questions fully and frankly. I have given you every bit of information I could without violating my professional duty to safeguard the confidences of a client.”

  Hamilton Burger jerked a contemptuous thumb. “There’s the door,” he said.

  “How about Garvin?”

  Burger jerked his thumb upward. “Your client,” he said, “is going to spend quite a little time in a hotel at the expense of the taxpayers.”

  “Gentlemen,” Mason said, “I wish you a very good evening. Garvin, my instructions to you are to make no statement of any sort.”

  Hamilton Burger picked up the telephone, said to someone at the other end of the line, “Okay, send in the newspaper reporters.”

  Mason took the elevator down to the curb, caught a cab back to his office.

  Della Street, waiting apprehensively, said, “How did it go, Chief?”

  Mason shook his head. “There’s something in this case I don’t understand as yet.”

  “How about the police?”

  “There’s a lot in the case they don’t understand.”

  “And what about Homer Garvin?”

  “Garvin,” Mason said, “is going to be charged with being an accessory after the fact, and I’m afraid they’ve got the deadwood on him.”

  “And what else?”

  “And Stephanie Falkner is being charged with murder, first-degree murder.”

  “And you?”

  Mason grinned. “Garvin and I are being put on ice. The D.A. will get his murder firmly established and then he’ll claim we’re accessories.”

  “And how are you going to combat a situation of that sort?”

  Mason said, “We’re going to have to trust to a faith in human nature, a lot of mental agility and considerable ingenuity. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, the district attorney will have the grand jury indict Stephanie Falkner for the murder of George Casselman by noon tomorrow. He’ll then hold Homer Garvin, Sr. as an accessory, and probably won’t make any very serious objection to letting him out on bail. Hell hold that charge over him as a club, hoping that sooner or later the pressure will build up to such an extent that Garvin will cave in and help him.”

  “And in the meantime?” Della Street asked.

  Mason grinned. “In the meantime, Della, we’d better get that dinner we were talking about. It may be the last good meal we’ll thoroughly enjoy together.”

  “You mean they’ll arrest you?” she asked.

  “I doubt it,” Mason said, “but somehow I have a feeling this may be the last meal we’ll really enjoy for quite some time. Let’s go!”

  Chapter 16

  Paul Drake slid into his favorite position, sitting crosswise in the big, overstuffed, leather chair, the small of his back propped against one big, rounded arm, his knees propped over the other, the legs dangling.

  “Well, you’ve got a bear by the tail in one hand, and a tiger by the tail in the other, Perry,” he said.

  “Homer Garvin, Sr. was indicted for being an accessory in the murder of George Casselman. His bail was set at a hundred thousand dollars. He made bail almost immediately and will be out within an hour or two.

  “Stephanie Falkner is held for first-degree murder without bail. The grand jury indicted her about an hour ago. There’s an open trial date on the calendar and the district attorney is yelling for an immediate trial, pointing out that defense attorneys are always trying for delay, delay, delay, and he’s making a great grandstand in the press.”

  “What have you found out about Dawn Joyce?” Mason asked.

  “It’s a little difficult to get a line on a girl like that,” Drake said, “particularly after she’s just married someone of family and means.

  “You know how it is with any show girl or model. As a matter of fact, most models are steady-going, hard-working girls. A good many of them are married, have kids, make good mothers, and wonderful wives. But there’s a provincial attitude on the part of the public. The fact that a girl is photographed in bathing suits or does kicks in front of an audience causes lots of people to get funny ideas.

  “Over in Las Vegas, you can pick up gossip on Dawn Joyce. She lived in an apartment by herself. She worked part of the time as a show girl in a chorus. She worked part of the time as scenery, one of the girls who puts on a tight-fitting bathing suit and drapes herself around the pools in the various hotels. Then she’d act as a shill on the side, dolling herself out in low-cut, strapless dresses, circulating around the gambling tables, being easy to get acquainted with, and helping the suckers who wanted to gamble to make a little bigger bets and stay with the wheel a little longer than would otherwise be the case.”

  “Commission?” Mason asked.

  “Apparently not,” Drake said. “She was on a salary and all this was part of the job. There was nothing crude, no attempt to strong-arm a guy into playing; but you know how it is; a man will stay with the game and buy two or three more stacks of chips if there’s an amiable, attractive, young woman standing alongside of him pouring chips across the board. He hates to have it appear that he’s a piker when some young woman is giving him an appreciative eye, and at the same time is apparently plunging with her own money.”

  “And winning?” Mason said.

  “Exactly,” Drake observed. “You don’t know just how they do it, but you watch them and they sure seem to win a lot more than the casual tourists. Of course, you can account for that in part, because they know the game. They know when to bet heavy and when to bet light. In the second place, it makes a lot of difference if you have an unlimited bankroll. Of course, they never cash in on their chips, and they know there’s lots more where the last stack came from. Gamblers tell me that lots of people lose out at gambling because they don’t have the guts to pile it on heavy enough when they’re winning, or the prudence to tap it light when they’re losing. Gamblers say luck comes in waves. You’re hot and then you’re cold. When you’re hot you want to pour it on for all it’s worth, and when you’re cold you want to pull in your horns until you get hot again.

  “I don’t know whether there’s anything to it or not. Personally I’m a poor gambler. Anyhow I’m just telling you about Dawn Joyce. She’s easy on the eyes, and she showed as much scenery as the law allowed.

  “Now she knew this fellow Casselman. There’s no doubt about that. She went out with him on several occasions as a private date. She seemed to like him, or else they had some kind of a business deal hooked up. No one knows.

  “Casselman was a blackmailer, but I can’t prove that on him. No one knows just how he lived. He was a sharpshooter. He hung around the Strip in Las Vegas, and he managed to make a pretty good living doing nothing. He made it in cash. He didn’t use bank accounts, and he didn’t make income tax returns. He just drifted along on a hand-to-mouth basis.

  “Lots of people come to Las Vegas. Some of them are tourists who are just passing through. Some of them are a café society set from Los Angeles and San Francisco.

  “A man who had a good memory for faces and figures could make money by remembering things other people would like to forget. That would particularly be true if he had a few show girls giving him tips about who did what and when and where.”

  “Yes,” Mason said, “I can see. And that might be hard to trace.”

  “It is hard to trace,” Drake agreed. “Casselman had about fifteen hundred dollars in his wallet when he was shot. As far as anybody can tell, that’s every cent he had in the world and yet you know damn well it wasn’t. He’s got money stashed away somewhere, either in a safety deposit box under another name or buried or hidden somewhere. In any event, he could have gone and put his hand on cash when he needed it. There were times when he paid out as much as ten or fifteen thousand dollars for options on property for a quick deal, and he’s produced the cash every time, a nice assortment of hundred-dollar bills.”

  “And the income tax people have never looked him up?” Mason asked.

  “Never made a pass at him as far as I can find out. The guy was a smooth operator. He kept in the background, and he had never made the mistake of making that first income tax return. As far as the records were concerned, no one knew he was alive.

  “There’s plenty of tie-in between Dawn Joyce who is now Homer Garvin, Jr.’s wife, and George Casselman who is now a corpse. For some reason, Mrs. Garvin, Jr. would like very, very much indeed to have the entire matter hushed up. Whatever her connections with Casselman and her Nevada activities were, she doesn’t care about having them aired in the daily press, particularly in view of the fact that she’d like to be received into the upper crust as the wife of Junior Garvin.”

  “How does he rate?” Mason asked.

  “That depends on the class of person you ask. He’s a plunger and wild. But he may steady down, and his old man is well thought of, although the old man never goes in for any of the social stuff.

  “The kid went into this used-car dealing and, believe me, he works it fast. He believes in quantity turnover and he’ll take small profits if he can’t make big profits. But he wants turnover and he gets turnover. He has evidently made quite a bit of money out of the car business, and he’s plunging in real estate, taking options on various bits of property, and there again he makes quick turnovers. He managed to find out where some property was going to be condemned by the state. No one knows exactly how he found it out, but he showed up with a string of options, and naturally the state was anxious to do business with one man who had control of a big percentage of the property, and who was willing to make a fast buck and let it go at that.”

  “What did you find out about the Acme Electric and Plumbing Repair Company?”

  “Both the Acme outfit and the Eureka Associated Renovators received mail at 1397 Chatham Street, a rooming house. Some man rented a room there and received all the mail. He seldom slept there, but kept his rent paid and dropped in from time to time.”

  “Description?” Mason asked.

  “General,” Drake said. “Fits almost anyone. Because he kept the rent paid in advance, no one paid much attention to him.

  “I can give you one tip on this murder trial, Perry. Hamilton Burger is going to leave Dawn Joyce out of it just as much as he can. His idea is that you made a switch in murder weapons, and he thinks he can prove it. He thinks he’s got the deadwood on Stephanie Falkner.

  “Of course, you can try to bring in the idea that Dawn Joyce could have been the killer by introducing evidence about that gun, but the minute you do that, Burger is going to go all out with the contention that you went down there with the murder gun, that you pulled a fake accident in order to divert attention, and switched guns simply to drag in Dawn Joyce as a red herring.”

  “Well,” Mason said, “I guess we’ll give him all the chance he wants to make that claim. He can’t prove I switched guns.”

  “Apparently he can’t prove it,” Drake said, “and that’s burning him up. He can surmise and that’s about all.… You’re representing Stephanie Falkner?”

  “I’m going to represent her.”

  “Look, Perry, just off the record, what does she say? What happened?”

  “There,” Mason said, “is the thing that bothers me. She won’t say a word, except to assure me that she didn’t shoot Casselman. She says she’s innocent of any crime. She won’t amplify that statement. She says that there is something she would have to disclose if I started cross-examining her that no one knows and she doesn’t intend ever to let it come out.”

  “Something in her past?” Drake asked.

  “I assume so,” Mason said. “She’ll break down her reserve and tell me her story eventually but right at the moment she’s sitting tight.

  “She says they are going to have to prove her guilty before they can convict her and she says they simply can’t do anything more than direct suspicion toward her way with some very inconsequential circumstantial evidence.… And she may be right at that.”

  “Well,” Drake said, “I wish you luck.”

  “There’s just a chance I could need it,” Mason told him grinning. “What about the place where those billheads were printed? Can you get any line on that?”

  “Not so far. We’re telephoning like mad, and we’re covering all the more likely job-printing establishments with personal investigators. So far no luck.”

  “Keep after it,” Mason said.

  Drake lurched up out of the chair. “We’ll sure do that, Perry, and we’ll let you know anything that turns up.”

  Chapter 17

  Hamilton Burger arose to make his opening address to the jury.

  “In this case,” he said, “I am going to be brief and factual. It is the intention of the prosecution to avoid all dramatics and to present the case with such mathematical certainty that there can be but one inescapable conclusion.

  “On the seventh day of October of this year, George Casselman met his death. Medical evidence will show you ladies and gentlemen of the jury that a revolver was placed against Casselman’s body just below the heart and slightly to the left of the median line. The trigger was pulled. The shot was what is known as a contact wound. That is, the muzzle of the revolver was firmly held directly against the body of the victim. In this way, the gases from the exploding shell as well as the bullet went into the victim’s body. Under those circumstances, the sound of the report would have been greatly muffled.

  “The prosecution intends to show that the defendant, Stephanie Falkner, had an appointment with George Casselman. She went to keep that appointment by entering the front door of Casselman’s apartment. Sometime later she was seen surreptitiously leaving the apartment by way of the back door.

  “We expect to show you that she stepped in the blood of her victim, that she went to the bathroom and tried to wash the blood from her shoe. She left a footprint etched in blood on the floor, and she left towels in the bathroom that bore traces of human blood and bits of material which came from her shoe.

  “Her friend, Homer Garvin, tried to cover up the traces of her crime and did obliterate much of the evidence. For that he will in due time be tried, but enough evidence remains to convict this defendant.

  “We expect to prove with mathematical certainty that the gun with which the murder was committed was in the possession of the defendant. An ingenious device was used by her attorney, Perry Mason, to confuse the issues on that point, but bear well in mind that the fatal weapon was found in her possession. Let her explain how that came about if she can.

  “Mr. Perry Mason, the attorney who is representing both this defendant and Homer Garvin, has not been indicted as an accessory or an accomplice at this time. However, he has not been granted any immunity. We will ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to weigh the evidence and bring in a verdict of first-degree murder against this defendant. After that verdict is in, you may leave it to us to take such additional steps as will deal with the persons responsible for juggling evidence and obstructing the administration of justice. You are not to concern yourselves with that aspect of the case except as it shows certain things which explain the physical facts. Your sole concern is as to whether this defendant murdered George Casselman.

  “We shall expect a just verdict and a fair verdict at your hands.”

  Hamilton Burger turned with dignity and walked back to his seat at the counsel table.

  Judge Hilton Decker looked at Perry Mason.

  “Does the defense wish to make an opening statement now, or wait until later?”

  “We will wait,” Mason said.

  “Call your first witness, Mr. Prosecutor,” Judge Decker said.

  Hamilton Burger’s chief trial assistant, Guy Hendrie, took charge and called as the prosecution’s first witness one of the radio officers who had entered the Casselman apartment and who described briefly the body on the floor, the pool of blood, and the fact that the Homicide Squad had been promptly notified.

  There was no cross-examination.

  The prosecution’s next witness was Sergeant Holcomb, who took the stand with an air of importance, testified to his connection with the Homicide Squad, the fact that he had arrived at the scene, had been in charge, had directed the taking of photographs, and eventually the removal of the body, that thereafter fingerprint men had been instructed to try to develop latent fingerprints.

  Again there was no cross-examination.

  The photographer who had taken the pictures was sworn and the various pictures were introduced in evidence, including a color picture of the bloodied footprint on the floor.

  Again there was no cross-examination.

  Judge Decker glanced sharply at Mason, started to say something, then changed his mind.

  The autopsy surgeon testified to the nature of the wound and the course of the bullet. The wound, he explained, was what was known as a contact wound. He stated that the one shot had been almost instantly fatal, although there had been a brief period of unconsciousness during which there had been a very large internal and external hemorrhage. He identified the fatal bullet which had been recovered from the body of the decedent.

  He fixed the time of death as being probably between seven o’clock in the evening of the seventh of October and midnight. He had performed an autopsy at noon of the eighth and he fixed the probable time of death as between twelve and seventeen hours prior to the autopsy, although he was inclined to consider fifteen to sixteen hours prior to the autopsy as being the most logical time.

  Again Mason failed to ask any questions on cross-examination.

  At that point, Guy Hendrie recalled Sergeant Holcomb to the witness stand.