He broke off as Alden Leeds’ face twisted into writhing expression.

  “You weren’t looking for that one, were you?” Mason asked conversationally.

  For a moment, Alden Leeds seemed to be fighting for his self-control. But when he spoke, his voice was calm and well-modulated. “No,” he admitted. “I wasn’t. You’re smarter than I’d figured.”

  Mason said, “The worst of being an attorney is that you’re obligated to protect your clients. Sometimes your clients don’t want to be protected. They get chivalrous and try to take a rap. Then it’s up to the lawyer to go ahead and protect them anyway.”

  Leeds said, “Look here, Mason. This is sheer nonsense, but it’s dangerous nonsense.”

  Mason said, “Emily Milicant has taken a run-out powder. She sent me a phoney letter from a Yuma hotel, hoping that would pull the wool over my eyes.”

  “She isn’t there?” Leeds asked, his voice either showing surprise or a well-simulated imitation.

  “No,” Mason said. “That hotel has no party by that name stopping there—no one at all who answers the description.”

  Leeds digested the information in thoughtful silence.

  “Suppose,” Mason said, “you tell me a little more about Hogarty.”

  “Suppose I don’t?”

  “In that event,” Mason said, “I’ll fill in the gaps as best I can, and do as I see fit.”

  “What makes you think Emily killed him?”

  “Lots of things,” Mason said. “I don’t think you’re the type who would run away from a killing in a fair fight, and I don’t think you’d kill a man deliberately unless you did it to protect someone you loved. If you’d done that up in the Yukon, there’d have been two witnesses—you and Emily. You’d have stayed and faced the music.”

  Leeds twisted his long fingers together. “Emily,” he said, “was high-spirited. She was fond of adventure, and the restrictions which were carried over as an aftermath of the gay nineties, didn’t appeal to her in the least. She went very much on her own. She was very willful, very determined, and very independent.”

  “Go on,” Mason said.

  “She’d met Hogarty. She came up to the claim as a young woman who wanted to throw in her lot with two prospectors on a basis of share and share alike. She was willing to do her share of the work to make the cabin neat and attractive, to do the cooking, to do anything else she could around the mine. But she wasn’t going to stand for some of the stuff Hogarty had in mind. Hogarty overplayed his hand when I was in at the nearest settlement getting grub. I came back and found her gone. She’d left a note.”

  “Where’s that note?” Mason asked.

  “Burnt,” Leeds said crisply.

  “She killed him?”

  “Evidently,” Leeds said. “They had a knockdown and dragout battle. Emily shot, and the bullet knocked him over. He got up and ran out. She didn’t know where he was hit. It was toward the end of the season. It was getting dark early. I think it was the trail of the blood on the floor and in the snow that put her in a panic. She threw some things onto a sled, and started out. There were only two dogs left in camp. I was getting provisions with the big dog team.”

  “When did you get back to the cabin?”

  “Three days later.”

  “You tried to find her?”

  Leeds nodded. Evidently, he didn’t care to discuss that phase of the matter.

  “And you tried to find Hogarty?”

  “Hogarty was dead,” Leeds said. “He’d been shot in the abdomen. Another prospector took care of him. That prospector’s name was Carl Freehome. I, of course, didn’t know that until later. I got there to the shack, found it deserted, found Emily’s note. We’d struck it rich while we were working on a pocket. That had been before Emily showed up. We didn’t let Emily know. Hogarty refused to let her in on that. The gold was cached under the floor of the fireplace. I dug up the gold, used the provisions I’d got as a stake, and made it through to White Horse. I found no trace of Emily.

  “Then was when I had the idea of throwing the authorities off the track by going out as Bill Hogarty. Then if anyone accused her of murdering Bill Hogarty, the records would show that he’d left the country. If they claimed it was Leeds she’d murdered, Leeds could show up very much alive and well. It was the best I could do for her under the circumstances.”

  “You finally found her in Seattle?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you hear about this man Freehome?”

  “I didn’t hear about him. She did years later. She told me a few weeks ago when we met. I employed a detective agency to try to find him. They said he’d been seen two years ago in Dawson City. There, they lost his trail. Later on they heard a rumor he was in Seattle.”

  “What became of Hogarty’s body?”

  “After he died,” Leeds said, “Freehome loaded it on his sled, went up to the cabin. He found the hole where I’d dug the gold cache out of the floor, and was shrewd enough to tell that it had been a pretty good cache. He started looking around, and found the rest of the pocket. Lord knows how much was left in it. I wasn’t interested at the time. I was trying to find Emily. . . . That’s my theory anyway, putting two and two together from the facts as I discovered them.

  “Put yourself in Freehome’s place. It was a wild country. Winter was coming on. The ground was freezing up hard. Freehome had a chance for a stake. He dug a shallow grave, buried Hogarty, and went to work. When he’d finished with the claim, he left Hogarty where he was. He had no other choice. Legally, the claim was ours. He’d stripped it of the rest of the pocket. Naturally he didn’t want to have an argument over who owned the gold. . . . I wanted to find him and tell him he could keep the gold—if he had any left. What I wanted was his story. I hoped that Hogarty had made some statement before he died. That’s why we flew north.”

  “You didn’t find him?”

  “Lord, no! We didn’t have a chance to even look. The police nabbed me first.”

  Mason said, “Your nephew, Harold, apparently has been cutting a wider swath than he’s been given credit for. His mistress had an apartment in the same building with Milicant. Leeds went downstairs to call on Milicant. He’d found out Milicant was going under the name of Conway, and found out about the twenty grand. Harold didn’t know whether it was blackmail or what. He wanted to find out. He’s the witness who saw you leave the room.”

  “Harold, eh?”

  “It doesn’t seem to surprise you,” Mason said.

  Leeds said dryly, “Nothing surprises me. I’ve had too many birthdays.”

  “I don’t suppose,” Mason said, “that, under the circumstances, you’d care to go on the witness stand and tell your story.”

  Leeds looked at him, steadily, slowly shook his head.

  Mason scraped back his chair, and got to his feet. One of the deputy sheriffs reached for the telephone. Mason said, “I’ll see you in court,” and walked across to the barred door. The second deputy opened the door, escorted Mason through the anteroom, and out into the corridor. Leeds, standing behind the screen of the divided table, turned to wait-expectantly facing the door of the elevator which was to take him down to the jail.

  Drake was waiting for Mason at his office. It needed but a look at Della Street’s face to tell Mason that the detective had bad news. “What is it, Paul?” he asked.

  Drake said, “We’ve located Emily Milicant.”

  “Where?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “What’s she doing there?”

  “Hiding out in a hotel.”

  “Anyone with her?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Who?”

  “Ned Barkler.”

  “Oh, oh!” Mason said. He slid his weight to the corner of the desk and lit a cigarette. “Together?”

  “In the same hotel, but not living together.”

  “How come?” Mason asked.

  “Well, when you told me that she’d taken a powder on you and wasn’t in Yuma, we started checking airplanes. She’d been in Yuma all right, and probably mailed you the letter telling you she was going to the Border City Hotel, but after she did that, she went to the telegraph office and asked for messages for Mrs. J. B. Beems. She got a message. We don’t know what it was. Anyway, she took a plane for San Francisco as soon as she read the telegram. Barkler was waiting for her there.”

  “They’re still there?” Mason asked.

  “No,” Drake said. “That’s the bad part of it. The police located her about the same time my men did.”

  “The same time,” Mason echoed.

  “Uh huh,” Drake said. “To me, Perry, it stinks. I think my telephone line has been tapped. It looks as though they’ve moved in on us. Every move we make is being watched.”

  Mason’s face darkened. “By God,” he said, “I’ll bust those guys wide open!”

  “I didn’t know my line was tapped. I’ve got the lowdown on yours,” Drake went on. “There was a stakeout where your telephone conversations were being recorded on dictaphone cylinders. We located the room. One of the men left there, and my operatives shadowed him. He’s a detective working under Homicide out of headquarters. You know what that means, Perry. They’re closing in on us.”

  Mason said, “By God, they can’t pull that with me. I’ll find out who’s responsible for this and start turning on the heat. They . . . ”

  “They don’t care now,” Drake interrupted. “They’ve closed the net. They took Emily Milicant and Ned Barkler into custody, and are bringing them back.”

  “On what charge?” Mason asked.

  Drake said, “I don’t know, perhaps material witnesses, perhaps as accessories after the fact. They’re gunning for you, Perry, and they’re using big caliber guns. You know what they’ll do to me.”

  Mason said grimly, “But they don’t know what I’ll do to them! Right now I could put Emily Milicant on the spot. If I had to, I could just about convict her of the murder of Bill Hogarty, and by letting the D.A. prove Milicant was Hogarty, I could rip their case wide open.”

  Della Street said eagerly, “Are you going to do it, Chief?”

  Mason, staring moodily at the carpet, shook his head.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Just an old-fashioned custom,” Mason said, “—one that’s almost out of date—that of shooting square with a client.”

  14

  COURT CONVENED at ten o’clock.

  Late spectators, shuffling into the courtroom, looking in vain for seats, were admonished by a stern bailiff that there was to be no standing room, that only seated spectators could remain. The low-pitched hum of buzzing conversation, the rustling of restless motion on the part of the spectators, combined to furnish a backdrop of sound, against which the whispered conversation of Perry Mason and Della Street blended so perfectly that only their postures showed they were holding an important conference.

  “Gertrude Lade understands her part?” Mason asked.

  Della Street nodded.

  “Did she make any objection?” Mason asked.

  “Not a bit,” Della Street said. “She seemed to like the excitement.”

  Mason grinned. “Guess she hired out to the right party.”

  “I’ll say she did,” Della Street said.

  A side door opened, and a deputy sheriff escorted Alden Leeds into the courtroom.

  The whispered conversation died to a dead silence, broken only by the breathing of the attentive audience, a breathing which was a sequence of overlapping sounds, without rhythm.

  Judge Knox entered the courtroom from his chambers, and the bailiff rapped the court to order.

  Bob Kittering, struggling to keep his voice calm as he arose from his chair, said, “If we may have the indulgence of Your Honor, the prosecution would like to remove the fingerprint expert from the stand long enough to interrogate a new witness who knows important facts which were not entirely within the possession of our office yesterday.”

  Judge Knox glanced at Perry Mason.

  “No objection,” Mason said.

  “Very well, so ordered,” Judge Knox observed.

  Kittering said, “Call Harold Leeds to the stand.”

  Harold Leeds moved forward from the rear of the courtroom. His steps lagged as though his legs recognized all too clearly the nature of the ordeal awaiting at the end of their journey.

  “Step right up,” Kittering said. “ . . . That’s better . . . Hold up your right hand and be sworn. Now give your name, address, and occupation to the clerk. Be seated on this witness chair. . . . Now, Mr. Leeds, your name is Harold Leeds. You are a nephew of the Alden Leeds who is on trial here in this action as a defendant. Is that right?”

  “That,” Harold Leeds said moodily, and with his eyes downcast, “is right.”

  “Were you acquainted with John Milicant prior to his death?”

  “I was.”

  “Did John Milicant, at any time, tell you anything concerning his true identity?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “What was it?”

  Judge Knox said, “Just a minute before you answer that question,” and looked down at Mason as though expecting an objection. When he heard none, he said, “I’m not certain, gentlemen, but what this question plainly calls for hearsay evidence.”

  Kittering pulled his brief case toward him, and took out several pages of closely-written, legal foolscap.

  “If Your Honor will permit me,” he said, “I would like to be heard on this. While it is true that the question may, in one sense of the word, call for hearsay evidence, in another sense of the word, it is the sort of hearsay evidence which, by law and custom, has been universally accepted in all courts of justice.

  “For instance, the question is frequently asked a witness, ‘How old are you?’ And the witness replies, giving his age. Obviously, the question calls for hearsay evidence, and the answer is founded on hearsay. Yet, it is universally accepted as being necessary in the nature of things that such an exception to hearsay evidence should be permitted.

  “Now we come to another and similar situation. A man establishes his identity by going under a certain name. If a man goes under a certain name, that is all that is necessary to establish at least a claim to identity. In the present case, we propose to show that the decedent went for many years under the name of Bill Hogarty, that it was under this name, he met and prospected with Leeds in the Yukon. . . . ”

  “I understand,” Judge Knox said, “but this question asks the witness to repeat something which the decedent told him. Is it your contention that this is part of the res gestae?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Judge Knox frowned. “I’m going to reserve a ruling on that question for the moment,” he said. “The court is inclined to think that there should be some foundation in the case for supporting the contention that this is a part of the res gestae.”

  “I was trying to show that it was, by this very question, Your Honor.”

  “I understand that,” Judge Knox said patiently, “but I think you had better first lay a foundation so that the court can determine intelligently how much of a time factor is to enter into the determination of the res gestae.”

  “And,” Kittering pointed out, in a sudden burst of inspiration, “there’s no objection on the part of counsel for the defense.”

  Judge Knox’s face showed a flashing expression of surprise. He glanced down at Perry Mason, frowned, and said thoughtfully, “I guess that’s right. Do I understand, Mr. Mason, that such is the case?”

  Mason said, “Such is the case, Your Honor. There has been no objection.”

  “Well,” Judge Knox said irritably, “lay some foundation anyway.”

  Kittering said, “I will ask you this question, Mr. Leeds. Did you, during his lifetime, know a Bill Hogarty?”

  “Well,” Leeds said hesitantly, “I knew a Bill Hogarty, alias Conway, alias Milicant.”

  “How did you know he was Hogarty?”

  Leeds said, with what evidently was the manner of one reciting by rote, “In the same way that I know you are Mr. Kittering, the deputy district attorney—because he told me so. He told me his name wasn’t Milicant, that he wasn’t the brother of Emily Milicant, that he was Bill Hogarty, a man whom Alden Leeds thought he had murdered. He said he’d had his nose broken since and had put on a lot of weight, and Uncle Alden hadn’t recognized . . . ”

  “Just a moment,” Judge Knox interrupted. “I think that answer has gone far enough. The answer, as given, most certainly answers the question, as asked. I think any statement made by the decedent to this witness for the purpose of showing motivation, malice, or bad blood between the parties should not be admitted in evidence unless it is shown that is was a dying statement. And I take it, counselor, your question didn’t call for such a communication?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Very well. Proceed.”

  “Did you see the defendant on the night of the murder—the seventh of this month?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “At about ten-twenty-five in the evening.”

  “Where?”

  “Emerging from the room of Bill Hogarty—or John Milicant, whichever you want to call him.”

  “Please state exactly what you saw and exactly what you did,” Kittering said.

  Leeds told Judge Knox his story. At times, his voice was so low that even the court reporter had difficulty in hearing it. At times, he spoke more freely. Always he tried to push into the background his relationship with Inez Colton.

  When he had finished, Kittering, evidently hoping to take Mason as much by surprise as possible, said abruptly, “Cross- examine.”

  “That,” Mason said with a suave smile, “is all. I have no questions.”

  Leeds seemed nonplused. The deputy district attorney was frankly incredulous. “Do you mean to say there’s to be no cross-examination of this witness? You aren’t cross-examining on the question of identity?”

  “No,” Mason said.

  “Very well, the witness is excused, and I will now call one more witness slightly out of order—Mr. Guy T. Serle.”