“I’m talking about the reason Norton had for claiming the Buick sedan was stolen,” said the lawyer.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Drake wanted to know.

  “Everything,” insisted Perry Mason. “That’s an unexplained fact in that case, and until we get the explanation of that fact, we haven’t got a solution of the murder.”

  “That’s a good line of hooey for the jury,” commented the detective, “but it doesn’t really mean anything. You can’t explain everything in any case. You know that.”

  “Until you can explain it,” doggedly insisted Mason, “you haven’t got a complete case. Now remember that the prosecution is going to rest its case on circumstantial evidence. In order to get a conviction on circumstantial evidence, you’ve got to exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than that of guilt.”

  The detective snapped his fingers.

  “A lot of lawyer talk,” he said. “That doesn’t mean anything to the newspapers, and the newspapers are going to be the ones who will determine whether or not your client gets convicted.”

  “Well, before I get done with this case,” Mason remarked, “the newspapers are going to figure that Buick car is the most important fact in the entire case.”

  “But the automobile wasn’t stolen. It didn’t leave the garage.”

  “That’s what the butler says.”

  Drake’s face suddenly became hard with concentrated attention.

  “You mean that the butler is lying?” he asked.

  “I’m not making any statements right now,” said Mason.

  Drake spoke in a monotone, as though thinking out loud.

  “Of course if the butler had taken the car and disconnected the speedometer, and maybe gone for a little drive, and Norton had telephoned the police that the car was stolen, and he wanted the driver picked up, no matter who it might be, and then the butler had come back and found out about that telephone call . . .”

  His voice trailed off into silence. He sat motionless for a few minutes, then shook his head sadly.

  “No, Perry,” he said, “that won’t work.”

  “All right,” said Mason, smiling, “I’m not asking you what’ll work and what won’t work. I want facts out of you. Get the hell off of my desk, and let me go to work. Put your rough shadows to work just as soon as you can. I’m anxious to find out what they uncover.”

  “You’re representing both Gleason and the woman, eh?” asked Drake.

  “Yes, I am now. Frances Celane is going to stand by her husband. She’s told me to represent him.”

  “All right, I’m going to ask you something that’s been asked me by a dozen different people, I hope you won’t take any offense, but it’s for your own good, because everybody in town is talking about it. They’re saying that if the lawyer for the defense has any sense why doesn’t hetry to get separate trials and try the man and the woman separately? In that way they’d have to try the man first, and you’d have a chance to find out all their evidence and cross-examine all their witnesses before they got down to a trial of the woman.”

  “I couldn’t get separate trials for them,” said Mason. “The court wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Well, you could at least make the attempt,” said the detective.

  “No,” said Mason with a smile, “I rather think I’m satisfied the way things are now. I think we’ll try them together.”

  “Okay,” said Drake, “you’re the doctor. I’ll get the rough shadows at work just as soon as I can.”

  Chapter 18

  Perry Mason appeared at the entrance to the visitors’ room in the huge jail building.

  “Robert Gleason,” he told the officer in charge.

  “You’re Gleason’s attorney?” asked the officer.

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t appear for him as his attorney when he first came in.”

  Perry Mason frowned. “I’m his attorney now,” he said. “Do you want to bring him out, or do you want me to go into court and show that the officers have refused to permit me to talk with my client?”

  The officer stared at Mason, shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heel without a word, and vanished. Five minutes later he opened a door and escorted Mason into the long room.

  A table ran the length of this room. Along the middle of the table, stretching to a height of some five feet above it, was a long screen of heavy iron mesh. The prisoners sat on one side of this screen. The attorneys sat on the other. Robert Gleason was seated about half way down the table. He got to his feet, and smiled eagerly as he saw Perry Mason approaching. Perry Mason waited until the officer had moved out of earshot, then dropped into the chair, and looked searchingly across at the man accused of murder.

  “Keep your voice low when you answer questions, Gleason,” said Mason, “and tell me the truth. No matter what it is, don’t be afraid to tell me the exact truth.”

  “Yes sir,” said Gleason.

  Mason frowned at him.

  “Did you make a statement to the District Attorney?” he asked.

  Gleason nodded his head.

  “A written statement?”

  “It was taken down in shorthand by a court reporter, and then written up and given to me to sign.”

  “Did you sign it?”

  “I haven’t yet.”

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s in my cell. They gave it to me to read. That is, they gave me a copy.”

  “That’s funny,” said Mason. “Usually they try to rush you into signing it. They don’t let you have a copy.”

  “I know,” said Gleason; “but I didn’t fall for that. They tried to rush me into signing it, and I told them I was going to think it over.”

  “It won’t do you much good,” the lawyer told him, wearily, “if you talked in front of a court reporter, he took down everything you said, and he can testify to the conversation from his notes.”

  “That’s what the District Attorney’s office told me,” said Gleason. “But I’m not signing, just the same.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” said Gleason, in a low voice, “I think that I’ll repudiate what I said.”

  “You can’t do it,” the lawyer told him. “Why the devil did you have to shoot off your mouth?”

  “I can do it the way I intend to,” Gleason told him.

  “Can do what?”

  “Repudiate the confession.”

  “All right, show me,” said the lawyer.

  “I intend to take the entire responsibility for the murder,” Gleason told him.

  Perry Mason stared at the man through the coarse screen of the partition.

  “Did you commit the murder?” he asked.

  Gleason bit his lips, turned his head so that his eyes were averted from those of the attorney.

  “Come on,” said Perry Mason. “Come through, and come clean. Look up at me and answer that question. Did you commit the murder?”

  Rob Gleason shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

  “I’d rather not answer that question just yet,” he said.

  “You’ve got to answer it,” Perry Mason told him.

  Gleason wet his lips with the tip of a nervous tongue, then leaned forward so that his face was almost against the coarse iron screen.

  “Can I ask you some questions before I answer that?” he inquired.

  “Yes,” Mason said, “you can ask me all the questions you want, but you’ve got to come clean on that before I leave here. If I’m going to act as your attorney, I’ve got to know what happened.”

  “The District Attorney’s office told me that Frances had been caught with some of the money that Mr. Norton had in his possession when he was killed.”

  “Don’t believe everything the District Attorney’s office tells you,” Mason answered.

  “Yes I know. But the point is, did she have that money?”

  “I’ll answer that question by asking you another,” said Perry Mason. “Did Mrs. Mayfield make any statement to the District Attorney about having money in her possession, that she had received from Frances Celane?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gleason.

  Perry Mason chose his words carefully, “If,” he said, “the District Attorney’s office has any proof of Frances Celane having any of that money, it came through Mrs. Mayfield. In other words, they found Mrs. Mayfield with the money, and she passed the buck to Frances Celane. Now, if that happened, there’s just as much reason to believe that Mrs. Mayfield was in the room at the time of the murder, and took the money from the body of the dead man, as to believe that Frances Celane gave it to her.”

  “Are they sure that there was a woman in the room at the time of the murder?” Gleason inquired.

  “Don Graves says there was.”

  “He didn’t say that the first night.”

  “We can’t prove what he said the first night because the police have torn up the notes of the statement he made.”

  “He says now that there was a woman there?”

  “Yes, he says there was a woman. I think he’s going to say it was a woman who wore a pink negligee.”

  “Did he see her plainly enough to identify her?”

  “He saw her shoulder and arm, and part of her head—probably the back of her head.”

  “Then Mrs. Mayfield is trying to pin this crime on Fran?” asked Rob Gleason.

  “I’m not saying that,” said Mason. “I’m simply giving you the facts as I know them. If the District Attorney’s office has proof of any money, that’s where they got it.”

  “How much chance do you stand of getting Fran off?” asked Gleason.

  “One never knows what a jury is going to do. She’s young and attractive. If she keeps her temper and doesn’t make any damaging admissions, I stand a pretty good chance.”

  Gleason stared through the screen at the lawyer for a few moments, and then said: “All right, I’m not attractive. I haven’t got any of the things in my favor that Frances has. How much chance do you stand of getting me off?”

  “It depends on the kind of a break I can get, and on what you’ve told the District Attorney,” said Mason. “Now, I’m going to tell you what I want you to do. You go back to your cell and get some paper. Say that you want to write out what happened, in your own handwriting. Take that paper and scribble a lot of meaningless stuff on a few pages of it, and then tear it up. Let them believe that you used up all the paper, but take the rest of the paper and write out a copy of the statement that the District Attorney has given you to sign. In that way, I’ll know exactly what you said, and what you didn’t say.”

  Rob Gleason swallowed twice painfully.

  “If,” he said, “you don’t get the breaks, they may convict Fran?”

  “Of course, she’s charged with first degree murder, and there’s some circumstances in the case that don’t look so good.”

  “Would they hang her?”

  “Probably not. She’d probably get life. They don’t hang women, as a rule.”

  “Do you know what it would mean to a girl of her fire and temperament to be shut up in a penitentiary for the rest of her life?” asked Gleason.

  Perry Mason shook his head impatiently.

  “Of course I know,” he said. “Let’s not start worrying about that now. Let’s get down to facts. Tell me, did you, or did you not, murder Edward Norton?”

  Gleason took a deep breath.

  “If,” he said, “the case commences to look hopeless for Fran, I’m going to confess.”

  “Confess to what?” asked Mason.

  “Confess to the murder of Edward Norton; confess that I married Frances Celane for her money; that I didn’t care very much about her. I liked her well enough, but I wasn’t crazy about her. She had a great big bunch of money, and was a good catch. I wanted the money bad enough to marry her, and I married her. Then I found out that because she had married, her uncle had the right to cut her off with almost nothing. Her uncle didn’t know about the marriage until the night he was killed. He found it out then. He was going to exercise the discretion given to him under the trust, and turn everything over to the charitable institutions, leaving Fran with just a lousy thousand or two. I went in and argued with him. He wouldn’t listen to reason. Fran went in and argued with him, and that didn’t do any good. Then Crinston came, and he had an appointment with Crinston, so we had to let our matter go. Fran and I went back down to her room. We sat and talked things over. Mrs. Mayfield came in, and was furious. She’d been blackmailing Fran, threatening to tell Mr. Norton about the marriage, unless she got a bunch of jack. Edward Norton had found out about the marriage, and that had killed the goose that laid Mrs. Mayfield’s golden eggs.

  “I heard Crinston drive away. He took Don Graves with him. I went out to have a last word with Mr. Norton. I went up to his study, and on the stairs I ran into Mrs. Mayfield. She wore a pink negligee, and she was still weeping about the money that shed lost. I told her if sh ed keep her head, we could have lots of money. She wanted to know what I meant, and I told her I was going to give Norton one more chance to come through. If he didn’t take it, I was going to smash his head for him before he had a chance to give Frances Celane’s money to charity. She went with me up the stairs and into his study. I gave Edward Norton his ultimatum. I told him that if he didn’t give Frances her money, he was going to be sorry. He told me that he was not going to give her a cent; that he was going to turn it all over to charity, and then I cracked him on the head. I went through his pockets, and he had a big bunch of dough in his pockets. I took some, and Mrs. Mayfield took some. We were talking about how we were going to make the murder look as though burglars had done it. Mrs. Mayfield said we could pry up a window and leave some footprints outside in the soft loam. I wanted to plant it on the chauffeur because I knew he was drunk. While we were talking it over, we saw the lights of an automobile coming down the hill, and I figured it must be Crinston coming back. Mrs. Mayfield ran down and fixed the window so it looked as though burglars had come in, and I ran down and planted a stick and a couple of the thousand dollar bills in Devoe’s room. Then I jumped in my car and beat it.”

  Perry Mason looked at the young man thoughtfully. “What did you do with the money that you had?” he asked.

  “I buried it,” said Rob Gleason, “where it will never be found.”

  Perry Mason drummed with the tips of his fingers on the table. “So help you God,” he asked, “is that what happened?”

  Gleason nodded his head.

  “That’s in confidence,” he said. “I’m going to beat the rap if I can. If I can’t, I’m going to come clean so that Frances Celane won’t have to take the jolt.”

  “Did you,” asked Perry Mason, “take out the Buick automobile on the night of the murder? Did you use it at all?”

  “No.”

  Perry Mason pushed back the chair.

  “All right,” he said. “Now I’m going to tell you something. If you ever spill that story, you’re going to get Frances Celane sent up for life, if you don’t get her hung. Probably you’ll get her hung.”

  Rob Gleason’s eyes grew wide.

  “What ever in the world do you mean?” he asked.

  “Simply,” said Perry Mason, “that nobody will believe the story the way you tell it. They’ll believe just half of it. They’ll believe that you committed the murder all right, but they’ll figure that it wasn’t Mrs. Mayfield that was with you. They’ll figure that it was Fran Celane, and that you’re trying to protect her by dragging Mrs. Mayfield into it.”

  Gleason was on his feet, his face white, his eyes wide.

  “Good God!” he said. “Can’t I save Frances by telling the truth?”

  “Not that kind of truth,” said Perry Mason. “Now go back to your cell and get me a copy of that statement the District Attorney wants you to sign. In the meantime, keep your head and don’t tell anybody anything.”

  “Not even the truth, the way I told it to you?” asked Gleason.

  “The truth is the last thing in the world you want to tell,” said Perry Mason, “the way you’re situated. Because nobody’s going to believe you if you do tell the truth, and you’re a rotten liar.”

  He turned on his heel and walked away from the screen meshed table, without a single backward glance. The officer opened the locked door, and let him out of the visiting room.

  Chapter 19

  It was the first time Frank Everly had ever been in court with Perry Mason; the first time he had ever been behind the scenes in a big murder case.

  He sat at the side of Perry Mason and stared surreptitiously at the crowded courtroom, at the nine men and three women who were in the jury box, being examined as to their qualifications as jurors. He strove to give the impression of being thoroughly at home, but his manner betrayed his nervousness.

  Perry Mason sat at the counsel table, leaning back in the swivel chair, his left thumb hooked in the armhole of his vest, his right hand toying with a watch chain. His face was a cold mask of rugged patience. Nothing about the man gave any indication of the terrific strain under which he labored.

  Behind him sat the two defendants: Frances Celane in a close fitting costume of black, with a dash of white and a touch of red, her head held very erect, her eyes calm and a trifle defiant.

  Robert Gleason was nervous, with the nervousness of an athletic man who finds himself fighting for his life under circumstances that necessitate physical passivity. His eyes smouldered with the sullen fires of suppressed emotions. His head jerked from time to time as he turned to face the various speakers in the drama which so intimately concerned him.

  The courtroom was filled with that peculiar atmosphere which permeates a crowded room where spectators are in a state of emotional unrest.

  Claude Drumm was acting as the trial deputy for the state, but there was a rumor that the District Attorney himself would come into the case as soon as the jury had been selected, and the routine evidence disposed of.

  Drumm had been on his feet much of the time in his examination of the jurors. He was tall, well-tailored and self-contained, yet forcefully aggressive, without displaying too much force. His manner held the easy assurance of a professional who is fully at home and who is driving steadily toward a predetermined goal which he is assured of reaching.