“Are you speaking with authority?” Mason asked.

  “Just giving you a friendly tip.”

  “Thanks a lot. I’m glad to see you still feel friendly.”

  The sheriff lapsed into silence.

  Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake, and the sheriff entered the house, walking through the echoing rooms which somehow were still impressed with the silence of death.

  “Now in here’s the room where it happened,” the sheriff said. “The bloodstain’s still on the floor. They wiped up the blood, but the stain itself will have to be sanded out.”

  “Where’s the room where the dog was kept?” Mason asked.

  “Over here.”

  The sheriff opened the door.

  Mason regarded the scratches on the inside of the door, said, “It’s your understanding he’d been using this room for the dog for some time?”

  “That’s right. Whenever he had people coming in, he’d put the dog in that room.”

  Mason regarded the scratches on the door. “As you have so aptly pointed out,” he said, “those scratches are all fresh.”

  “That’s right. The dog heard a quarrel. He knew his master was in danger, and then he heard the shot. Naturally he wanted to get out to protect his master.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Mason admitted. “Now, the bullet went clean through the body?”

  “Clean through,” the sheriff said, “and out those French doors.”

  “That,” Mason said, “is something that interests me. You can’t be certain that … ”

  “Well, you’re not going to make a red herring out of that, not with this jury,” the sheriff said. “I know the people in this county pretty well. I know six of the people on that jury so I call them by their first names. I know how they react to things in this county.”

  “I’m quite certain you do, Sheriff.”

  They walked back into the main room.

  Mason looked the place over with careful scrutiny, then said, “Do you happen to remember whether there was a stepladder around here, Sheriff, a good, tall step-ladder?”

  “Good lord,” the sheriff groaned, “what do you want with a stepladder?”

  Mason pointed to the peaked ceiling. “I want to examine that little place right up there in the ridgepole.”

  “What place?”

  “Up there where the beam runs into it. It’s a little difficult to see but it … ”

  “Sure enough, there is something up there,” the sheriff said, “but I don’t know what difference it could make.”

  “It might make a great deal.”

  “What do you think is up there?”

  “It could be a bullet,” Mason said.

  The sheriff regarded him with frowning suspicion, then looked up once more at the all but invisible hole on the right-hand side of the ridgepole at a point where the beams had been cut on an angle to join into the two-by-six which served as a ridgepole and to which the heavy rafters had been attached.

  “What would a bullet be doing up there?” the sheriff asked.

  “Just resting,” Mason said.

  “Yeah,” the sheriff told him, his voice heavy with sarcasm, “I get it now. Two guys were in here and they wanted to fight a duel, and they turned their backs and walked ten paces, then turned around to fire simultaneously, only Alder fired straight up in the air because that hole’s right over where his body was found. The other guy shot him through the heart, so it was a duel and the guy acted in self-defense.”

  “Any time you get done having your little fun,” Mason said, “we’ll hunt up a ladder and inspect that hole.”

  The sheriff seemed vaguely uneasy as lie looked up at the hole. “I don’t think that thing was there when we found the body,” he said.

  “Why not?” Mason asked.

  “If it had been, we’d have seen it. We looked the room over for bullet holes.”

  “Sure,” Mason said, “you looked the walls over. You didn’t look at the ceiling.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s a bullet hole anyway. I think there’s a ladder down in the basement.”

  “Let’s go get it.”

  The sheriff led the way down to the basement. They found a long stepladder and, after some maneuvering, managed to get it up the stairs and into the big spacious study.

  They erected the stepladder and the sheriff insisted on his official prerogative of being the first up the ladder.

  “Looks like it might be—well something,” he said, and took a pocketknife from his pocket and opened the blade.

  “Just a minute,” Mason said. “I want to warn you, Sheriff, that if that’s a bullet, the markings on it may be of the greatest importance. You go digging around and scratching it with a knife and you may destroy evidence that would be vitally important to the defendant in this case.”

  “Yeah, I know,” the sheriff said, opening the small blade of his knife and thrusting it up in the hole, then moving it back and forth.

  “Did you take that down, Della?” Mason asked.

  Della Street said, “Every word of it.”

  “Say, wait a minute,” the sheriff said. “I’m not giving any reported interviews.”

  “You just think you’re not,” Mason told him. “I warned you to leave that bullet alone and preserve the evidence intact. I have my statement and your reply. That’s my protection.”

  “What protection have I got?” the sheriff asked angrily.

  “You don’t need any,” Mason told him. “You’re an officer of the law—but if there’s a bullet up there, Sheriff, you’re going to have to get-on the witness stand and tell about finding it and getting it out and account for any scratches or mutilations. It may be vitally important to determine what gun fired that bullet.”

  “Say, how did you know that bullet was up here?” the sheriff asked.

  “I didn’t,” Mason said. “I only surmised that it might be up there. I … ”

  There was a shout from the ground outside the window. Through the open window, a man could be seen running toward the house.

  “Now what?” the sheriff asked angrily, getting down off the stepladder.

  “We found it!” the man shouted, as Mason went to the window. “We found a gun.”

  The sheriff, angrily indignant, strode to the door, opened it and ran down the steps. Mason, Paul Drake and Della Street followed behind.

  “Hang it,” the sheriff said, as they hurried across the yard, “that’s what comes of letting your stooges get out here without anyone watching them. They planted a gun and … ”

  “I wouldn’t make any accusations, Sheriff,” Mason said.

  “Well, it’s just all too damned opportune,” the sheriff grumbled.

  The men were grouped around a little hole in the sand.

  “There she is,” one of the men said. “We didn’t touch it. When we got a squeal out of the doodlebug, we just dug down easy-like to see what was down here and as soon as we saw what it was we left it alone.”

  The sheriff bent down, scratched around in the sand, then reached down, picked up a sand-covered revolver, held it up in front of him and blew the sand off of it.

  “You may want to look on it for fingerprints,” Mason said, “although it probably won’t do you any good. Even when a gun hasn’t been buried, there’s only small chances of finding any fingerprints on it.”

  “I know, I know,” the sheriff said. “Nevertheless, I’ve got to see what this is. It looks to me as though this had been planted.”

  “Oh, it does, does it,” Mason said.

  “That’s right, it does,” the sheriff announced grimly, swinging the cylinder out to the side. “One exploded cartridge,” he said, “.44 caliber.”

  “Now then,” Mason told him, “you’ve botched up this case so far. Here’s some significant evidence. Let’s see what you do with it.”

  “I don’t need any of your advice,” the sheriff said angrily.

  Mason moved his men over toward the section of beach opposite the French doors. The men put up a rather small-mesh, tilted screen.

  Mason, studying the house, mapped out an area. “Just sift the sand here, boys.”

  “Say what the hell are you looking for now?” the sheriff asked.

  “The fatal bullet,” Mason said.

  “Well now that’s different. You boys go right ahead, only remember I’m here now and you can’t plant a thing.”

  The men carefully dug up the light sandy soil, let it sift through the screen.

  “Say there may be something to this,” the sheriff said. “We could have done this I s’pose. Only it didn’t seem there’d be any need of … Hey, wait! There it is! There’s the bullet!”

  The sheriff scrambled forward, retrieved a somewhat battered lead bullet which had faint, reddish discolorations on its point.

  “Okay, boys,” Mason said cheerfully. “We can knock off now.”

  “Say what caliber is this?” the sheriff asked.

  “I have an idea it’s a bullet from this forty-four,” Mason said.

  “Look here, if you think I’m going to fall for all this hocuspocus, you’re crazy,” the sheriff stormed. “I’m not going to monkey with all this red herring mess of planted clues!”

  “Well, of course,” Mason said casually, “you’re the one who has the friends on the jury, Sheriff. You’re the one who has to run for reelection. If you want to get thoroughly discredited, go right ahead. You’ve done fine so far.

  “Come on, boys. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 21

  Seated in his office, Mason gleefully read the morning newspapers.

  Headlines announced:

  SECOND MURDER WEAPON IN ALDER CASE FOUND,

  and down below these headlines:

  UNEXPLAINED BULLET LODGED IN RIDGEPOLE!

  “Well,” Della Street said, watching Mason’s smile, “are you going to read it aloud?”

  Mason nodded, said, “I’ll give you a few of the highlights here and there. Listen to this one:

  “Sheriff Leonard C. Keddie disagreed sharply with ballistics experts. The bullet which was found in the ridgepole was, he insisted, one which had been planted there subsequent to the murder. How, he demanded, could a man be shot through the neck with the fatal bullet going straight up in the air? The bullet, he insisted, could not have come from the gun found under Alder’s body.”On the other hand, Hartley Essex, the ballistics expert employed by the district attorney’s office, is equally positive that regardless of how the bullet arrived at its destination it is a bullet fired from Alder’s gun. Moreover, he now feels positive the .44 bullet found by searchers is probably the fatal bullet. A small fragment of dried human tissue was still adhering to the bullet when it was found.

  “It has been established that the .44 bullet was fired from the gun found buried in the sand. This poses a most embarrassing series of questions for the prosecution. Which bullet killed Alder? If the one in the roof, Alder must have been leaning forward, bent over when the shot was fired.

  “On the other hand, if the .44 bullet was the fatal one, the whole theory of the prosecution needs revising. Even if someone stood in front of George S. Alder and fired the fatal bullet with the forty-four, how did the bullet from Alder’s own gun, found under his body, get into the ridgepole?

  “It is also to be remembered that medical testimony already introduced by the prosecution is to the effect that the fatal bullet was a .38 caliber. It is understood a host of experts are available to the defense, anxious to testify that the hole of an entrance wound made by a bullet is almost always smaller than the caliber of the bullet, due to the elasticity of the human skin, which is pushed far inward before the bullet actually penetrates.

  “However, if the prosecution should now change its contention as to the caliber of the fatal bullet, the defense will have a field day with the experts who have already testified.

  “The .38 caliber double action, unquestionably belonged to George S. Alder in his lifetime. Not only had Alder secured a permit to carry a gun and mentioned the numbers of this gun in his application for such a permit, but records show that the weapon was sold to George S. Alder some two years ago, and Alder’s signature appears on the record of firearms sold.

  “Hartley Essex, the ballistics expert, explained that bullets in going through a human body are quite frequently deflected by bones and will do extraordinary things; but obviously he is not too happy about the position of the bullet in the Alder case, or about the prospect of facing further cross-examination by Perry Mason when the case reopens Monday morning.

  “Dr. Jackson B. Hilt, the autopsy surgeon who performed the post-mortem on the body of the deceased, insists that the course of the bullet, while ranging slightly upward, showed no evidence that the bullet had been deflected by bony structures of the body. Assuming that the man was standing in an approximately upright position at the time the fatal shot was fired, the course of the bullet was such that the point of exit was approximately two inches higher than the wound of entrance. Yet a plumb line suspended from the place where the bullet was found shows that it points almost directly to the center of the bloodstain which indicates the position where the body was lying.

  “Further statements were not forthcoming because District Attorney Claud Gloster clamped the lid down as soon as it appeared that there was an official variance of opinion between the sheriff and the ballistics expert. Shortly after statements were made by these men, they suddenly became as quiet as though a legal muzzle had been clamped over their mouths. When asked for an elaboration of his original statement concerning the bullet, Hartley Essex, the ballistics expert, merely gave a tight-lipped ‘no comment.’

  “Sheriff Keddie, obviously restless under the admonition of the district attorney, said, ‘I’m not going to say another word.’

  “ ‘Does that mean that you’ve changed your opinion that the bullets you found were planted?’ he was asked.

  “ ‘No it doesn’t,’ he announced, grimly. ‘I may be keeping quiet but I’m not changing my opinions.’

  “The unexpected developments in the case followed an examination of the premises by Perry Mason, attorney for the defendant, Paul Drake, a private detective employed by him, and several deputies armed with devices designed to detect the presence of metallic substances below the surface of the earth.

  “The .44 revolver, when located, was found to be fully loaded, with one empty cartridge case in position under the hammer, indicating that only the one bullet had been discharged from the gun.

  “It is, therefore, quite evident that interesting possibilities have been opened up by this somewhat tardy discovery of the fatal bullet, provided it is the fatal bullet.

  “It is assumed that Perry Mason may now attempt to show that George S. Alder must have committed suicide, or was the victim of an accidental discharge of his own gun. Despite the fact that Mason’s client has insisted she was not on the premises that night, despite circumstantial evidence indicating that this statement is, to put it mildly, subject to some correction, Perry Mason is in the advantageous position of being able to conform his courtroom strategy to whichever direction the cat may jump.

  “It is assumed by courtroom experts who have been following the trial that it will be necessary at some stage of the proceedings for Mason to put his client on the stand, and at that time it is almost certain that she will lie forced to change her statement that she was not at the beach city on the night of the murder. Too strong an array of facts and of witnesses have been piled up to enable her to consistently maintain her original position that she did not leave the Monadnock Hotel Apartments where she was living on the night in question.

  “However, once having made that concession, the attractive defendant is in a position to go on from there as circumstances may indicate. Inasmuch as these later developments are as much of a surprise to the district attorney as they were to the sheriff, it is obvious that the prosecution finds itself faced with the necessity of anticipating a surprise move on the part of the defense, and since Perry Mason is known as a past master at staging dramatic last-minute surprises, there is no doubt but what the courtroom will be crowded Monday morning when Judge Garey resumes the trial of the case of the People of the State of California vs. Dorothy Fenner.

  “While outwardly everything remains serene, there is courthouse gossip to the effect that Claud Gloster, who felt positive he could achieve the triumph of adding Perry-Mason’s scalp to his belt, is quite obviously unhappy about the failure of the authorities to make a sufficiently careful search of the premises to reveal the bullet hole in the ridgepole, and there are persistent rumors that a strained feeling has come to exist between the district attorney’s office and that of the sheriff.

  “Sheriff Keddie not only insists that his office did not overlook the bullet in the ridgepole, but demands enlightenment as to how it happened that Perry Mason, who had never been on the premises before, walked into the room, and within a matter of minutes was pointing out a bullet hole which had previously been overlooked by all investigators.

  “ ‘How,’ Sheriff Keddie demanded indignantly, ‘did Perry Mason know it was there?’

  “That probably will be the sixty-four dollar question which Claud Gloster will hurl at Perry Mason in front of the jury Monday morning.

  “But those who have been following the astonishing legal career of Perry Mason point out that hurling questions at Perry Mason in front of a jury is apt to be a dangerous pastime.

  “In any event, developments since the Friday adjournment have been such as to change the complexion of the case. Deputies in the county offices who can get away are quietly staking out their claims to reserved seats in the courtroom of Judge Garey in anticipation of the Donnybrook Fair which they insist will take place when court convenes Monday morning at ten o’clock.”

  Mason folded the newspaper and grinned at Della Street.

  “Chief,” she asked, “how did you know that bullet was up there?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But, as the reporter points out in the newspaper, you entered the room and within a few minutes discovered a bullet hole which had eluded all the investigators!”