“Now then, the significant thing is that Mrs. Winlock didn’t make the call until after her husband had left the cabin and had a chance to report to her that he had frightened or forced Boring into returning the blackmail money.”

  “Then that leaves George D. Winlock the murderer,” Della Street said.

  “And he’s handled things so cleverly,” Mason agreed, “that if I do try to expose him as a murderer, I look like a heel. If, on the other hand, I put Mrs. Winlock and her son on the stand and let them swear to the story they’ve offered to tell, I get Dianne off the hook but leave myself open to a charge of suborning perjury at any time Winlock wants to lower the boom on me.”

  “Could this be a very shrewd, clever stunt that they jointly have carefully worked out and rehearsed?” Della Street asked.

  “You’re damn right it could,” Mason said.

  “And,” she asked, “what’s going to be your countermove?”

  “I don’t know,” Mason told her. “At first I thought it was simply an offer to furnish perjured testimony and I was going to throw the whole thing out in the alley. Now I’m not so certain that it isn’t a carefully, cunningly contrived plot to hamstring my defense and put me in such a position that I don’t know what actually did happen.”

  The lawyer resumed his pacing of the floor.

  After a few minutes he said, “Of course, Della, it’s not up to me to prove who did murder the guy-that’s up to the prosecution. My job is to prove Dianne innocent.”

  “Can you do it?” she asked.

  “With this testimony I could do it hands down,” Mason said.

  Again the telephone rang.

  “Paul Drake,” Della Street said.

  “Hello, Perry,.” Paul Drake said. “I’m finished down here at the Restawhile Motel.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “The distance to be covered is about a hundred feet each way. Moving at a fairly normal rate of speed it takes about thirty seconds each way. Moving at a rapid rate of speed, you cut that time down.

  “Getting in, picking up the telephone and putting the call through accounts for seven seconds. So her testimony is approximately correct. Figure about a minute and ten seconds as the outside time limit if she did what she said she did.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “here’s something else for you, Paul. Drive down to the telephone booth three blocks down the street. Time yourself from the entrance of the motel. Call me from that booth and let me know how long it takes until you hear my voice. I’ll be waiting here at the phone.”

  “Okay,” Drake said, “and then I want some lunch. I’m ravenous. I suppose you folks are sitting up there smug and well fed.”

  “We’re neither smug nor well fed,” Mason said. “I’m sitting on the end of a great big limb and I’m not too certain somebody between me and the tree doesn’t have a very sharp saw.

  “Get busy and see what you can find out, Paul.”

  Four minutes later, Paul Drake telephoned.

  “Hello, Perry,” he said when he had the lawyer on the line. “It took me exactly two minutes from the time I left the entrance of the motel to get down here, park my car, get in the telephone booth, close the door, dial you and get your answer.”

  “Hang it,” Mason said. “Dianne couldn’t have left the place and placed that call, or else the time element is all wrong.”

  Drake said dryly, “She Was the last person to see Harrison Boring alive. You may be able to mix Dillard up on the time element but that’s all it’s going to amount to, just a technicality. The facts speak for themselves.”

  “Of course,” Mason said into the telephone, almost musingly, “the time Dianne left can be checked with physical facts. The time she entered is fixed only by Dillard’s watch.

  “Just suppose he made the mistake of setting his watch not by the radio but by the clock there in the motel office.”

  “Would it help if you could show that?” Drake asked.

  “Anything would help,” Mason said. “That’s, anything that clarifies the situation.”

  “Or confuses it,” Drake said dryly. “I’m going to get some lunch.”

  Mason hung up the telephone, turned to Della Street. “Two minutes,” he said.

  “And that throws Dillard’s time off about four minutes?”

  “Something like that.”

  Della Street said, “He was looking at his watch in the dark and he could have misread the hands.”

  “It’s vital as far as Dianne is concerned,” Mason said.

  “Of course,” she pointed out, “it opens up some question of doubt, but after all she was in there at least ten minutes, even if Dillard did make a mistake.”

  “She says she wasn’t,” Mason said.

  “But,” Della Street pointed out, “she admits she remained long enough to search for and find the contract. She was only estimating the time.”

  Mason said, “The thing that annoys me is the smooth assurance of this district attorney who acts en the assumption that this is just a simple routine matter of another preliminary hearing in another murder case and there’s no reason on earth why he shouldn’t have it all buttoned up inside of half a day.”

  “But,” Della Street said, “the main problem is whether Winlock is lying, whether the whole family isn’t protecting the stepson, or who struck the fatal blow and when. After all, Dillard’s time discrepancies are minor matters.”

  Mason said, “I have in my hand an opportunity to introduce testimony that will throw the district attorney’s case out of the window, get Dianne in the clear and at the same time get a property settlement for her running into a very substantial figure.

  “If I do that, Winlock is either going to claim I was guilty of suborning perjury—or at least is in a position to do so any time he chooses to lower the boom.”

  “What will happen if you don’t do it?” Della Street asked.

  “Then,” Mason said, “Dianne is going to get bound over on a murder charge. She’ll be in jail awaiting trial, she’ll come up before a jury; by that time Mrs. Winlock will have withdrawn her offer and sworn she never made it. It will be the word of Dianne against a lot of circumstantial evidence and against the evidence of a man who has a great deal of influence in the community, George D. Winlock.

  “Then I’ll spring a dramatic surprise that Winlock is the girl’s father and is testifying against her to protect himself. I’ll make a high-pressure plea to the jury—and in all probability they’ll convict Dianne of manslaughter rather than murder. That’s about the best I can hope to accomplish. That’s the price of trying to be ethical. To hell with it.”

  Della Street, realizing the nature of the crisis which confronted the lawyer, watched him in worried silence.

  Chapter 17

  Judge Talent said, “This is the time heretofore fixed for resumption of the hearing in the case of the People of the State of California versus Dianne Alder. You were to let the Court know at this time whether you wish to put on a defense, Mr. Mason.”

  Mason said, “If the Court please, this is not a simple matter. There are complications which I am not in a position to disclose but which nevertheless cause the defense some concern as to the best course to pursue.”

  District Attorney Leland was on his feet. “If the Court please, the defense has had all the time they asked for and I object to granting any further time.”

  “I am not asking for further time,” Mason said, “but I would like to clarify one matter in regard to the time element. I would like to ask a few more questions on cross-examination of the witness, Steven Dillard.”

  “Is there any objection?” Judge Talent asked Leland.

  “There is lots of objection, Your Honor. This man, Dillard, is actually a hostile witness. He is in the employ of defense counsel. He gave his testimony reluctantly and he gave it so that he shaded everything he could in favor of the defense. The cross-examination was completed, my case was closed, and I object to having counsel try these tactics of recalling a witness for further cross-examination. It’s irregular.”

  “The matter rests in the discretion of the Court,” Judge Talent said. “Would you like to amplify your statement, Mr. Mason?”

  “I would, if the Court please. Dillard stated that the defendant was in the unit from nine o’clock to nine-twelve. Yet the records will show that the police were notified at nine-thirteen, which would indicate that the manager of the motel must have been in there at least by nine-twelve. The manager of the motel in turn, was notified by some woman over the telephone that—”

  “You don’t need to go any further, Mr. Mason. The Court is interested in the proper administration of justice. Your request will be granted. Mr. Dillard, resume the stand, please.”

  Dillard once more came to the stand.

  Mason said, “I would like to have you consult your notes in regard to the time element, Mr. Dillard. I would ask the district attorney for the notes which you state you kept at the time.”

  The district attorney grudgingly passed over the notebook.

  Mason stood beside Dillard. “These figures are scrawls, rather than figures,” he said. “How do you explain that?”

  “I was sitting there at the window and I took notes in the dark. I didn’t want to turn on the light.”

  “Now, you were also looking at your wrist watch in the dark in order to determine the time, were you not?”

  “My wrist watch has luminous hands.”

  “Is there any chance you could have missed the time by five minutes?”

  “Certainly not. I could see the dial very clearly.”

  “Could you have missed it by two minutes?”

  “No.”

  “By one minute?”

  “Well, I’ll put it this way, Mr. Mason. I couldn’t see the second hand, but I could see the hour hand and the minute hand and I might—I just might—have made a mistake of half or three-quarters of a minute; I don’t think as much as a full minute.”

  Mason said, “If Dianne left that unit, got in her car, drove to a telephone, called the manager of the motel; if the manager of the motel had then gone down to the unit to look for herself and then returned and called the police, it is obvious that the police couldn’t have received the call by nine-thirteen if Dianne had left the unit at nine-twelve.”

  Dillard said nothing.

  “Now, I notice that while the other figures are in the nature of scrawls,” Mason said, “the words ‘blonde enters cabin’ with the license number of her automobile, TNM 148 and the hour 9:00, are written very neatly. And the words, ‘blonde leaves unit’ with the figure 9:12 P.M. are also written very neatly. Can you explain that?”

  “Well, I … I guess perhaps I had moved over to where the light was better.”

  “Then,” Mason said, “you didn’t write those figures down at the time the defendant left the cabin. Perhaps you wrote them down later.”

  “No, I wrote them at about that time.”

  “At about that time, or at that time?”

  “At that time.”

  “Your Honor,” Leland said, “this is no longer legitimate cross-examination. The question has been asked and answered, and counsel is now attempting to argue with the witness and browbeat him.”

  Judge Talent said, “There is rather a peculiar situation here. May I ask counsel if it is the contention of the defense that the defendant actually was the person who put through the telephone call to the manager of the motel, suggesting that there was something wrong with the occupant of Unit 10?”

  Mason said, “I feel that without jeopardizing the interests of the defendant, I can answer that question by saying that it may, appear the call was made by her or by someone else and the time element may be the determining factor.”

  “She couldn’t have made that call,” Leland said. “It had to have been someone else, and counsel is trying to take advantage of this peculiar situation in the time element to give his client a chance to claim she made the call.”

  Mason, studying the notebook which had been kept by Dillard, apparently paid no attention to the objection.

  “Mr. Mason,” Judge Talent said, “an objection has been made. Do you wish to argue it?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “I think the question has been asked and answered. I will sustain the objection.”

  Mason turned to Dillard. “All right, I’ll ask you another question which has not been asked and answered, Mr. Dillard. Isn’t it a fact that you made this entry about the defendant entering the cabin with the license number of her automobile, and putting down the time that she left the cabin, before the defendant left the cabin? And while you were sitting at a desk under a reading lamp where you could write these figures neatly and concisely?”

  Dillard hesitated, then said, “No.”

  “And isn’t it a further fact,” Mason said, “that you are notoriously hot-tempered; that after the man with dark glasses left Unit 10, the decedent, Harrison T. Boring, who had caught you peeking through the parted curtain, came over to your unit, threatened you, and you lost your temper and hit him; that the blow knocked him down; that he hit his head on a stone and lay still; that you, realizing that you had seriously injured the man, picked him up, took him over to his own unit, opened the door, dropped him on the floor, poured whiskey over him, returned to your unit and while you were debating what you were going to do next, saw the defendant enter the unit rented by Boring; that you thereupon quit watching the unit, debating what you were going to do to save your own skin, that while you were debating the matter you heard the defendant’s car start and heard her drive off; that while you were still debating what to do, you heard the police arrive; that you at a time somewhat later wrote a synthetic record of the defendant’s visit approximating the time of her arrival and estimating the time of her departure, and then called your superior, Sid Nye, and asked that he come to your assistance?”

  Leland got to his feet with a supercilious smile. “Oh, Your Honor,” he said, “this is altogether too absurd. This…”

  The district attorney suddenly broke off at the expression on the judge’s face. Judge Talent was leaning forward from the bench, looking down at Moose Dillard.

  The big man on the stand was clenching and unclenching his huge hands. His facial muscles were twisting in the manner of a grown man who wants to cry and has forgotten how.

  Dillard wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “You’d better answer that question, Mr. Dillard,” the judge said somewhat sternly, “and answer it truthfully.”

  “All right,” Dillard said. “That’s the way it happened. I clobbered the guy. Only, I didn’t knock him down, he was standin’ in the door of my unit calling me names and he made a pass at me. I beat him to the punch and clobbered him.

  “The blow knocked him back and his head struck against the comer post on the porch and he slumped to the ground.

  “I didn’t know he’d been hurt too bad, but I’d been in enough trouble. I picked the guy up and carried him back to Unit 10 and dumped some whiskey over him. Then I saw he was badly hurt. I went back and tried to figure what to do and I saw this girl come in.”

  “The defendant?” Judge Talent asked.

  “That’s fight. I didn’t put down the time or anything. I went back over to the desk and sat there with my head in my hands. I heard her drive away and then after a while I heard the cops come and I knew I was in a spot.

  “I called Sid Nye and told him ‘Hey Rube.’ He’d been in carnival life and I’d been in the circus. I knew that would get me reinforcements. I intended to tell him what had happened, but he brought Perry Mason down with him and then I knew I was in a real jam.

  “Before they came, I faked that entry in the book. I just wanted to get the girl’s visit down and I didn’t know what time she came or what time she left so I approximated it.

  “Then I did want to get out of town. I didn’t intend to do anything that would put this girl in a jam. I just wanted to save my own neck.”

  Judge Talent looked at Leland.

  The prosecutor stood for a moment, his facial expression indicating the confusion of his mind. Then he slowly seated himself as though his leg muscles had lost the strength to support him.

  Judge Talent turned to Mason. “Would you mind telling the Court how you deduced what happened, Mr. Mason? Obviously it just occurred to you.”

  Mason said, “If the Court please, I had only to realize my client was telling the truth to appreciate the fact that something had to be wrong with the testimony of this witness. I then started searching for a possible explanation. When I saw the neat way the entry of Dianne’s visit had been made, I knew it hadn’t been written in the dark.

  “When I saw the letters, P.M. after the time, I knew the entry had been faked. No detective making notes on a night stake-out would write P.M. after the hour.

  “I reproach myself for not seeing it sooner.”

  “On the other hand,” Judge Talent said, “the Court compliments you on a masterly cross-examination and on your quick thinking.”

  The judge turned to the prosecutor.

  “The case against the defendant is dismissed, and I think we had better take the witness, Dillard, into custody for perjury and a suspicion of homicide; although I have a feeling that he is probably telling the truth and the actual blow was struck in self-defense.

  “Court’s adjourned.”

  Chapter 18

  Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake and Dianne Alder sat in the bedroom of Mason’s suite at the hotel.

  Della Street said, “I can’t hold off the press much longer, Chief. They’re milling around there in the living room and it’s taking more than cocktails to hold them in line. They want information.

  Mason looked at Dianne. “What do we do, Dianne?”

  Dianne took a deep breath. “As far as my father is concerned, he has repudiated me. I loved him at one time. I feel very fond of him now, but I recognize his weaknesses.