“Jurors can always ask questions,” Mason said, smiling. “What is your question, Miss Juror?”

  “How do we know that it was her custom to turn on the water in the evening and turn it off when she went to bed?”

  “We don’t as yet,” Mason said, “but I think the evidence indicates that that’s what happened this night, and I thinking that, I hope—we can show that it was her custom.”

  “Go ahead,” Della Street said.

  “Now, then,” Mason said, “the particular night in question, the one we’re interested in, Agnes Burlington didn’t turn off the water, she didn’t turn off the electric lights.”

  “Why?”

  “The answer has to be because she was alive when she turned on the water, she was alive when she turned on the lights but when the time came when she would normally turn off the water and normally turn off the lights she was dead. Moreover, weather records show there was a violent thundershower on the evening of the fourth. This is an unusual event for this climate but there was the usual violent wind, the usual brief, drenching rain.

  “If Agnes Burlington had been alive after that drenching rain, she would have turned off the water on the lawn. And the noise of the thunder could have prevented any neighbors from hearing the shot.

  “Therefore, the water ran all night on the lawn, all the next morning. The lights were on all that night, all the next morning. Then Ellen Adair drove up to see Agnes Burlington.

  “We can’t prove the exact time that Ellen Adair parked her car, but we do know that it must have been many hours after Agnes Burlington’s death, because the water, turned on so that it would trickle through the watering system onto the lawn, had soaked the lawn and then had drained down into the driveway so that it had left the driveway so muddy that the soil had retained the prints of the tires on the defendant’s car when she had driven in.

  “In other words, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the evidence conclusively shows that Ellen Adair must have driven her car into that driveway twelve to fifteen hours after Agnes Burlington had met her death.”

  Mason paused. “How am I doing?” he asked.

  “Very well,” Della said. “But won’t Ellen tell you what time she drove in there and left those tracks?”

  “Sure she will. She has. She says it was just an hour or two before she came here to the office to tell me about Agnes Burlington.

  “I think that’s another lie. She’s either trying to protect her son or is distorting the evidence.

  “I have to prepare this case for a jury without relying on any outside help. I have to rely on the evidence.”

  “You’re doing fine,” Della Street said. “My verdict is not guilty!”

  Mason grinned. “You’re a little too easily persuaded by defense’s arguments. Bulla. But, so far, that’s our only hope to cling to—that and the hope that the fatal bullet wasn’t fired from the revolver that the police found in the glove compartment of Ellen Adair’s car.”

  “Suppose it turns out that the fatal bullet was fired from that gun?”

  “Then,” Mason said, “we’ve got to find some dramatic development which is going to indicate innocence otherwise we’re licked.”

  “What about Wight Baird?” Della Street asked. “Couldn’t he have fired the fatal bullet?”

  “Sure he could,” Mason said, “and for all we know he did. There’s a modem young man who wants to go through life the easy way. I don’t know how much the Bairds left him, but if it wasn’t a substantial amount he could have pretty well gone through it. And if it was a substantial amount he could have decided that a couple of million more might be very acceptable.”

  “But, then, why would he kill Agnes Burlington, whose testimony would establish his claim to the two million?”

  “How do we know her testimony would have established his claim?” Mason asked. “We have the word of Ellen Adair for it, but how many times has Ellen Adair lied to us?”

  Della Street nodded. “You have a point there,” she said.

  “Well,” Mason said, “the preliminary examination starts tomorrow, and by that time we’ll find out a lot more about the case.”

  “You won’t try to get the case dismissed?” Della Street asked.

  “Not with all this evidence piled up against our client,” Mason said. “Not unless we can get some sort of a break.”

  “Well, we can always hope,” Della Street said.

  “The whole thing turns on that fatal bullet,” Mason said, “whether it was fired from Ellen Adair’s gun or whether it wasn’t.”

  “What does Wight say about the gun?”

  “What you’d expect him to say,” Mason said. “He borrowed the gun for target practice a week or ten days earlier. He fired the gun several times, then put it back in the glove compartment of Ellen Adair’s car, where he had told Ellen he’d leave it. Natural enough in one way when you consider his youth, his diversification of interests, girlfriends, studies, hot-rod automobiles, and liquor.”

  Della said, “I shudder to think of what that young man would do with two million dollars in cash.”

  Mason regarded her thoughtfully. “Look at it from his standpoint,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Figure out what he’d do without two million dollars in cash.”

  Chapter 16

  Judge Dean Elwell took his position on the bench, glanced at his court calendar, said, “The case of the People of the State of California versus Ellen Calvert, also known as Ellen Adair, defendant.”

  “Ready for the defendant,” Perry Mason said.

  Stanley Cleveland Dillon, the chief trial deputy of the district attorney’s office, stood up with impressive dignity.

  “We are ready for the people,” he said. “And the people respectfully wish to point out that this is a preliminary hearing solely for the purpose of determining whether a crime has been committed and whether there are reasonable grounds to determine that the defendant has committed that crime.”

  Judge Elwell said with some acerbity, “The Court understands the rule of law, Mr. Dillon.”

  “I know the Court does,” Dillon said. “But I wanted to point out the position that the prosecution will take when it comes to combating the harassing, delaying tactics which are so much a part of “the defense in some of these cases.”

  “We won’t go into any personalities,” Judge Elwell ruled. “Call your first witness.”

  Stanley Dillon, who prided himself upon having sent more defendants to their deaths than any other trial deputy in the State of California, was visibly annoyed at Judge Elwell’s treatment.

  Of late, there had been some criticism that Dillon regarded defendants in criminal cases as so much game to be stalked. Then an irate defense attorney had remarked that if it had been legal Dillon would have disinterred the bodies, mounted the heads of the various defendants whom he had sent to the gas chamber, and had them arranged as trophies in his study.

  Criticism of this sort bothered Dillon and caused him to explain that he was only doing his duty as a public servant. He claimed that he took no personal satisfaction whatever in securing verdicts of death in the criminal cases he had prosecuted. He was very conscious of public relations.

  Now he was well aware of the crowded courtroom.

  Not only had the case attracted much public attention because of newspaper publicity and the issues involved, but the two half brothers of Harmon Haslett, Bruce and Norman Jasper, were present in court, as were “Slick” Garland, the troubleshooter, and Jarmen Dayton, the detective.

  Ellen Adair sat beside Mason, still maintaining that air of queenly dignity, divorcing herself as a person from the proceedings in which she was the accused.

  “I am, if the Court pleases, going to make this as brief as possible,” Dillon said. “I will call Lieutenant Tragg as my first witness.”

  Lieutenant Tragg came forward, took the oath, seated himself comfortably in the witness stand, and gave his name, address and occupation to the clerk.

  “I am going to ask you, Lieutenant, very briefly to tell the Court what you found when you were called to a duplex dwelling at 163S Manlay Avenue on the fifth of the month. I will ask you to describe briefly what you found.”

  “Very well,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “We found a house with a front door which was closed and locked with a spring lock. The back door, however, was unlocked and partially open. We found a typical duplex bungalow, and in the bedroom of the bungalow, where all windows were closed and locked, we found the body of the occupant of the duplex.”

  “Her name, please.”

  “Agnes Burlington.”

  “What was the condition of the body, Lieutenant?”

  “It was clothed in a garter girdle, a bra, stockings and shoes.”

  “How was the body lying?”

  “Somewhat On its left side, generally in a face-down position.”

  “What was the condition of the body medically.”

  “The medical examiner can tell you more about that,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “But, generally, rigor mortis appeared “to have formed and disappeared. There was postmortem lividity.”

  “What did the postmortem lividity indicate?”

  “That the body had not been moved after death.”

  “You took photographs?”

  “We took many photographs, showing the position of the body and the surroundings.”

  “Now, when you moved the body, what did you find?”

  Lieutenant Tragg knew that he was dropping a bombshell in the lap of the defense. He couldn’t resist glancing at Perry Mason to see how the defense lawyer would take the information.

  “We found a thirty-two-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver under the body.”

  Mason jerked bolt upright in his chair. “May I ask the court reporter to read that last answer?” Mason asked.

  “Very well,” Judge Elwell ruled.

  The court reporter read the answer “We found a two-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver under the body.”

  “Was that revolver the fatal weapon?” Dillon asked.

  “I object, if the Court pleases,” Mason said. “This calls for a conclusion of the witness, and no proper foundation has been laid for his examination as a ballistics expert nor has there been any evidence that the decedent met her death by means of a gunshot wound. Therefore, the question assumes facts not in evidence.”

  “Oh, if the Court please,” Dillon said, “this is simply an attempt to expedite matters. I suppose that I could ask Lieutenant Tragg as to the cause of death and he could state that it was a bullet wound, but defense counsel would probably object on the ground that I had not qualified him as an autopsy surgeon.”

  “Go ahead ask him,” Mason invited.

  “What was the cause of death?” Dillon asked.

  “A gunshot wound.”

  Dillon said wearily, “At this time I’ll withdraw Lieutenant Tragg from the stand temporarily and put on the autopsy surgeon.”

  “Just a minute,” Mason said. “I have a few questions I would like to ask of Lieutenant Tragg on cross-examination before he steps down.”

  “You’ll have an opportunity to cross-examine him when I’m finished,” Dillon said irritably.

  “But I would like to cross-examine him now as to certain phases of the testimony he has already given. If you are going to ask him to step down from the stand, I think that I have that right,” Mason said.

  “All right, all right, all right,” Dillon said testily. “I have no objection.”

  Mason said, “You found a gun under the body of the decedent, Lieutenant Tragg?”

  “That’s right. Yes, sir.”

  “And that gun was a thirty-two-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What about the cylinder?”

  “The gun was fully loaded.”

  “There were no empty cartridges in the cylinder?”

  “No.”

  “Had the gun been discharged recently?”

  “According to the best tests we could make, the gun had not been discharged in some time.”

  “And did you make any attempt to trace the registration of that gun?”

  “We did. Yes, sir.”

  “And who had originally purchased that gun?”

  “The decedent, Agnes Burlington, had purchased it some years ago when she was a nurse in San Francisco and was called upon to go home from nursing jobs at various hours of the night.”

  “She had permission to carry the weapon?”

  “She did when she purchased it and for some years thereafter in San Francisco but she did not have a permit to carry the gun at the time of her death.”

  “This revolver was a thirty-two-caliber?” Mason asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Is it possible that the decedent could have met her death with a bullet from that gun and that thereafter someone could have removed the empty cartridge case and inserted a full cartridge in the cylinder?”

  Lieutenant Tragg shifted his position on the witness stand, then said, “I would say not.”

  “Why?” Mason asked.

  “Well, in the first place, I think she was shot with a thirty-eight-caliber revolver. I think we have the murder weapon. In the second place, I don’t think that this thirty-two-caliber Smith and Wesson had been fired at any time within the last five or six weeks.”

  “You recovered the fatal bullet?” Mason asked casually.

  “Now, just a minute-just a minute!” Dillon said. “If the Court pleases, I want to object to this on the ground that it is not proper cross-examination. I haven’t as yet gone into the question of the make or the caliber of the gun which inflicted the fatal wound or the whereabouts of the fatal bullet. I have been stopped by Counsel’s objections. Therefore, defense Counsel has no right to cross-examine the witness on these points.”

  “Well, if you want to be technical about it, I presume the Court will have to rule with you,” Judge Elwell said. “The objection is sustained.”

  “Very well,” Mason said, “that’s all at this time.”

  Dillon said, “I will call Dr. Leland Clinton as my next witness.”

  Dr. Clinton-a tall, efficient-appearing individual with an air of icy composure-took the witness stand gave his name, address and occupation recited his professional qualifications in response to questions laying the foundation to qualify him as an expert and was then asked if he had performed the autopsy on the body of Agnes Burlington.

  “I did. Yes, sir.”

  “Now, then, Doctor,” Dillon said, “I don’t want technical terms I want to know generally the cause of death.”

  “The cause of death,” Dr. Clinton said, “was a gunshot wound. A bullet entered the back to the right of the median line, penetrated the very top of the right kidney ranging upward, penetrated the heart, and emerged from the left side of the upper chest. I can, of course, give you the course of the bullet anatomically with—”

  “Not at this time, Doctor,” Dillon said. “I don’t care to clutter up the record with a lot of technical terminology unless the defendant should ask for it. The wound inflicted by this bullet, as you have described it, was sufficient to cause death?”

  “Yes.”

  “Within what length of time?”

  “Death was practically instantaneous-a matter of perhaps two or three seconds.”

  “Could the decedent have moved after having sustained this wound?”

  “Very briefly perhaps, but I doubt if the decedent could have engaged in many physical activities. From a physical standpoint, death was practically instantaneous.”

  “Now, then, the course of the bullet was ranging upward.”

  “That is right.”

  “So the weapon from which the bullet was fired must have been held at a low angle. If the decedent was standing at the time, the murder weapon must have been pressed close to the body at about the level of the waist or a little lower.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You may cross-examine,” Dillon said.

  “Were there any powder bums on the body of the decedent at the wound of entrance?” Mason asked.

  “No.”

  “Then the weapon couldn’t have been held close to the body of the decedent.”

  “I didn’t say that it had been.”

  “Pardon me,” Mason said. “I thought you said in response to a question by the prosecutor that if the body had been in a standing position, the weapon must have been held at about the level of the waist.”

  “That is correct,” Dr. Clinton said. “I am assuming, in answering that question, that it relates only to conditions if the decedent had been standing.”

  “But if she had been standing, there would have been powder burns?”

  “We would have reasonably expected powder burns-depending somewhat on the distance of the murder weapon from the body of the decedent. The murderer could, for instance, have held the weapon at the level of the floor, and there would have been no powder burns. But ordinarily, if the decedent had been in a standing position, there should have been powder burns-that is, we would have expected to find them.”

  “Then your assumption is that the decedent was not in a standing position at the time of her death?”

  “It is possible, yes.”

  “And what could have been her position?”

  “Once we eliminate the question of a standing position, she could have been in any position. She could have been on all fours, she could have been lying on the floor, or she could have been lying in bed.”

  “Did you find any evidence of contusions indicating that she had been struck or knocked down?”

  “No.”

  “And the bullet emerged from the upper left chest?”

  “That is correct.”

  “What about the contents of the stomach. Doctor?” Mason asked.

  “Now, just a moment!” Dillon said. “Here again Counsel is anticipating the prosecution’s case. I would like to put on my case in an orderly manner. I haven’t as yet asked this witness anything about the time of death.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to come to it,” Judge Elwell said.

  “I would like to present the case in an orderly manner-showing first the fact of death, the cause of death, and then the time of death.”