Della Street looked warningly at Perry Mason. “She has lots of crazy ideas. Give her a button and she’ll sew a romantic vest on it.”

  Perry Mason started pacing the floor. “Hang it!” he said. “It’s corny. It’s a grandstand. But it will catch the district attorney entirely by surprise, and it’s the only thing I can do.”

  Gertie turned to Paul Drake. “And your office says for you to call right away. It’s terribly important.”

  Paul Drake called for a phone to be plugged into an extension socket. Mason continued rapidly pacing the floor.

  “What,” Della Street asked, “do you have in mind?”

  Mason said, “I’ll call Stephanie Falkner to the stand as a defense witness. She will refuse to go. I’ll argue with her. There’ll be a scene in court. I’ll order her to take the stand. She’ll refuse to take the stand. Then I’ll rest my case. I’ll go to the jury with a whirlwind campaign that Stephanie Falkner knows the man she loved killed George Casselman, that—Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Della! I’ve got it. I’ve got it!” Mason said snapping his fingers rapidly.

  “Got what?” Della Street asked.

  Mason laughed. “They can’t find the bullet I fired into the desk out at Junior’s office. I’ve got it, Della! I’ve got it! We’ll use those bloodstained towels.”

  “Go on,” she said, his excitement communicating itself to her. “What are you going to do?”

  Paul Drake, listening on the extension telephone which had been plugged in by the waiter, shoved his right index finger in his ear, said, “Don’t make so much racket, you guys. My office is trying to reach me on something important.”

  Mason said, “Della, I’ll claim that Junior Garvin actually did take the gun we’ve referred to as the Junior Gun up to Stephanie Falkner’s apartment, that in the meantime Stephanie Falkner had noticed that the gun we’ve referred to as the Holster Gun, which was the gun Homer Garvin, Sr. had left with her, had an exploded shell in the chamber. That convinced her Homer Garvin, Sr. had killed Casselman. So instead of leaving the Junior Gun on the table where Homer Garvin, Jr. had put it, she grabbed that gun and concealed it in her apartment. Then she took the Holster Gun, the one which Homer Garvin, Sr. had given her the night before, the one with the exploded shell, and put it on the table in exactly the same position. And, by heaven, that’s exactly what she did do!

  “After all, Della, we’re a gun short. Homer Garvin, Sr. gave Stephanie the Holster Gun on the night of the murder. Homer Garvin, Jr. gave her the Junior Gun at my suggestion the following day. The police searched her apartment hut they only found one gun! As soon as they found that one gun, they quit searching.

  “By George! I’ll mix this case all up with the missing gun, bring in Gertie’s romantic theory, make a whirlwind argument to the jury, demand that the Court order my client to take the stand.… Hang it! I’ll throw on some courtroom fireworks that will make history!

  “I’ll recall Sergeant Holcomb to the stand. I’ll point out that when he found that one gun in Stephanie’s apartment, he had to rush to the ballistic department to have it tested. Then when he found it was the murder gun, he became so excited he never went back to search Stephanie’s apartment until the ninth.

  “We can see exactly what Stephanie did. As soon as Junior went out of the door, she put the Holster Gun on the table, and ditched the Junior Gun. By the time the police got back to search her apartment the second time, she’d had ample opportunity to put the Junior Gun where they’d never be able to find it.

  “That’s the only logical explanation. She felt Garvin, Sr. had killed Casselman so she switched guns.

  “I know Garvin saw Casselman about a quarter past eight. He must have shot Casselman in self-defense. Then when Stephanie went in at eight-thirty she found Casselman dead. She stepped in the blood—She went out the back way-Hang it! Della, she saw Garvin when he was driving away from the apartment house. She knew he’d seen Casselman. It all hangs together. Police bungled the investigative work, and Stephanie was the one who switched guns!

  “Della, I’ve been asleep at the switch! Why hasn’t it occurred to me before? We’ve been running around in circles about that gun, and it has never occurred to anyone that the whole case lies in that missing gun that the police haven’t found.”

  “Well,” Della Street said thoughtfully, “if you can put that across to the jury with all the fire of white hot enthusiasm you have now, Chief, you’ll get away with it.”

  “Get away with it!” Mason exclaimed. “Why the worst I’ll get will be a hung jury. They won’t convict her with that.… Gertie, bless your romantic, daydreaming, exaggerating hide! I’m going to buy you five pounds of candy as soon as I get out of court this afternoon.”

  “Oh, Mr. Mason,” she said. “Not candy, please! Anything else. I … I’m dieting this week.”

  “Five pounds of luscious chocolate creams!” Mason said. “A big, five-pound box of candy.”

  “Well,” she sighed, “if you insist.”

  Paul Drake hung up the phone, said, “Hey! Wait a minute, Perry! I’ve been covering print shops all over the city trying to find the print shop that printed those billheads for the Acme Electric and Plumbing Repair Company and the Eureka Associated Renovators. Last night I started my men checking Las Vegas. We found a printing establishment in Las Vegas that printed the billheads all right. They were done at the order of a man who paid for them in cash and unfortunately we can’t get any kind of a description of the man. It was done nearly a year ago. The people just can’t remember him.”

  Mason snapped his fingers. “Never mind that, Paul, I’m going to put this crazy, romantic idea of Gertie’s across. After all, why couldn’t Stephanie have switched guns?”

  Drake looked at his watch. “Well, I didn’t hear all of that stuff. I was too busy on the phone. But you’d better finish eating if you’re going to be in court at two o’clock.”

  Mason turned to Gertie. “Where is Marie now, Gertie?”

  “Waiting in your private office.”

  “She has those towels with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “On your way!” Mason said. “Tell her to wrap those towels in a package and bring them to me in court. I’ll stall the case until she can get there.”

  “Oh, she wouldn’t go into court with all that crowd, Mr. Mason. She’s immense. It’s going to happen any minute now.”

  “Marie will do anything that we tell her,” Mason said. “Her appearance will make it all the better. The minute she walks in that courtroom, every eye will be on her. Tell her just to walk up to the table and hand me the package.”

  “But how are you going to stall things along until she can get there?” Della Street asked.

  “Get started,” Mason said to Gertie. “I’ll stall along somehow. I’ll recall the last witness for additional cross-examination. I’ll think of something. Get started!”

  Gertie hurried out of the restaurant.

  Mason sat down to his lunch but was too excited to eat. “What a grandstand!” he said. “What a perfectly cockeyed theory! And the nice part of it is that the district attorney can’t disprove it. After all, in a case of circumstantial evidence, the evidence has to be strong enough to exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than that of guilt.”

  “Is that hypothesis reasonable?” Drake asked skeptically.

  “By the time Perry Mason gets done putting gilt paint on it,” Della Street said, “it will look like fourteen carat gold!”

  “Well!” Drake said looking at his watch, “don’t get so enthusiastic you forget to get to court at two o’clock. They say Judge Decker lowers the boom on guys who don’t show up.”

  Mason nodded, left a bill which more than covered the luncheon check, started walking down the stairs to the street. “I’ll recall Eva Elliott, Della. If I recall anyone else, it will look as though I’m stalling for time. Eva Elliott is the only witness I really have anything on. I’ll come down on her like a thousand bricks about those bills she paid.”

  “But,” Della Street asked, “is that proper cross-examination?”

  “It isn’t,” Mason said, “but by the time I’ve asked a dozen questions, the jury will get the idea. Judge Decker will be mad as a wet hen. Burger will be yelling. Then with all the argument and all the objections and all of the hullabaloo, I can stall things along until Marie can get there with those towels. Then I’ll spring this theory of the substituted guns on the jury and claim that it’s a reasonable hypothesis other than that of guilt. We’ll stampede that jury, Della. I’ll put Marie on the stand. It’ll be a circus!”

  “You know,” Della Street said, “you really do have something with that theory. Stephanie Falkner could have felt Homer Garvin killed him. She could have switched guns, concealed the gun they are calling the Junior Gun and substituted the one they are calling the Holster Gun, which was the murder weapon, putting it in exactly the same place on the table. She must have.”

  “Atta girl!” Mason said. “I’m getting you convinced, and you’re skeptical, Della. If I can convince you, it’s a certainty I can get at least one or two of the jurors looking at it my way.”

  “Remember,” she warned, “Hamilton Burger has the closing argument.”

  “If he argues that point,” Mason said, “he’s simply floundering around in a legal quicksand. There were two guns. His own evidence shows there were two guns. He’s never found that second gun. And since he hasn’t found it, he can’t refute the claim that Stephanie Falkner, desperately in love with Homer Garvin and trying to protect him, switched the guns and is willing to take the chance of being convicted in order to protect the man she loves.”

  “Well,” Della Street said, “it’s going to be quite some show and—Hang it, Chief! She must have done it!”

  “Of course, she did,” Mason said. “And that’s why she won’t go on the stand.”

  Chapter 20

  Judge Decker said, “It will be stipulated, I take it, gentlemen, that the jurors are all present, and the defendant in court.”

  “So stipulated,” Mason said.

  “The defense will proceed with its case.”

  “If the Court please,” Mason said, “a certain matter has come to my attention which makes me wish to ask a few additional questions of one of the prosecution’s witnesses.”

  “We object,” Hamilton Burger said. “The prosecution has rested its case, the evidence is closed as far as the prosecution is concerned.”

  “Which witness?” Judge Decker asked Mason.

  “Eva Elliott,” Mason said.

  “The defense motion will be granted. The case is reopened. Eva Elliott will return to the stand for further cross-examination,” Judge Decker ruled.

  Eva Elliott was called back to the stand. Mason, looking at his wrist watch, made a rapid calculation in regard to time.

  Eva Elliott settled herself on the witness stand in the best tradition of the motion-picture witnesses.

  Mason said, “Just one or two more questions on cross-examination, Miss Elliott. Did you have any secretarial experience before you started working for Mr. Garvin?”

  “Objected to as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and not proper cross-examination,” Hamilton Burger said.

  “Sustained,” Judge Decker said.

  “It was part of your secretarial duties to make out vouchers in payment of bills which were incurred by the Garvin enterprises?”

  “Yes.”

  “You habitually typed out checks covering those bills and Mr. Garvin would sign those checks?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What audit did you make of those bills?” Mason asked.

  “Objected to as incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, and not proper cross-examination,” Hamilton Burger said.

  “Sustained,” Judge Decker snapped.

  “Isn’t it a fact,” Mason asked, “that during the time you were with Mr. Garvin, you made out and got his signature on several checks amounting to several thousand dollars payable to the Acme Electric and Plumbing Repair Company of 1397 Chatham Street, and the Eureka Associated Renovators of 1397 Chatham Street, when, as a matter of fact, there were no such firms, and no orders had ever been given to those firms?”

  “Just a moment! Just a moment!” Hamilton Burger shouted. “Your Honor, this is completely outside the issues of this case. It is not proper cross-examination. It is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.”

  Judge Decker stroked his chin. “It would seem at first blush to be completely outside of the issues,” he said, “unless counsel can assure the Court that he intends to connect it up in that it might show bias.”

  “My next question,” Mason said, “will be to question the witness whether the person who was sending in these bills was not engaged in a conspiracy with her, and that this witness is therefore prejudiced and biased against Mr. Garvin, her former employer, because of fear that her defaultation will be discovered.”

  Judge Decker frowned. “I think I am going to permit the questions,” he said. “It’s rather a technical, legal point by which evidence which otherwise might well be extraneous is introduced into a case, but it needs only a glance at the face of this witness to tell that there is something here which is—”

  Eva Elliott interrupted. “Your Honor, I swear to you that I didn’t get a penny of it. Mr. Casselman promised to—” She stopped.

  “Go on,” Judge Decker said.

  “I don’t think she should be permitted to volunteer a statement,” Hamilton Burger said. “This is a very technical point. It is a matter which is being dragged in by the ears for the purpose of discrediting a witness whose actual testimony is not open to doubt and who has testified to a fact which is uncontradicted.”

  “It is uncontradicted as yet,” Judge Decker said, “but the defense has not put on its case. The witness will kindly compose herself. You mentioned the name of Mr. Casselman, Miss Elliott.”

  Eva Elliott started to cry. “He promised to have me as his entertainer when the new motel went up. He lied. He couldn’t make good. He promised me a floor show.…”

  The door of the courtroom opened. Marie Barlow, quite evidently in the last stages of pregnancy, carrying a paper package in her hand, moved with slow, measured steps down the aisle of the courtroom.

  Judge Decker looked at her. The jurors looked, and spectators turned to look.

  Marie Barlow approached the mahogany rail which divided the counsel tables from the courtroom, extended the paper parcel toward Perry Mason.

  Mason took the parcel in his hand, turned to the witness.

  Slowly, dramatically, he tore the paper from the package and brought out the bloodstained towels.

  “Eva,” he said, “after you shot George Casselman you wiped off some of the blood with towels and put those towels in your purse. You concealed them in the back of a filing cabinet in Mr. Garvin’s office. Then you substituted the Safe Gun, which you had used in the killing, for the Holster Gun which you took from Mr. Garvin’s holster while Mr. Garvin was in the shower. You put the Holster Gun back in the safe, didn’t you?”

  Eva Elliott got to her feet, then sank back into the witness chair.

  “I did it in self-defense,” she sobbed. “When I found out about what he had done, I … I …”

  “Now just a minute! Just a minute!” Hamilton Burger shouted. “This whole matter now has the appearance of being a well-rehearsed, carefully-staged attempt to stampede the jurors.”

  Mason resumed his seat at the counsel table and grinned at Hamilton Burger.

  “That’s all, Mr. Burger,” he said. “Rest your case, if you dare do so. The defense will put on no evidence.”

  “You have no further questions of this witness?” Judge Decker asked incredulously.

  “None, Your Honor,” Mason said.

  Hamilton Burger sat undecisively for a minute. “I would like to ask the Court for a thirty-minute recess,” he said. “It may be that the prosecution will …”

  “Do you have any questions of this witness?” Judge Decker asked.

  “No, Your Honor.”

  Judge Decker glanced at Perry Mason. “Does the defense oppose the motion for a thirty-minute recess made by the district attorney?”

  “The defense opposes the motion,” Mason said. “The defense does not intend to put on any evidence, and we would like to start the argument so that we can go to the jury this afternoon.”

  “Very well,” Judge Decker said. “Proceed with your case, Mr. Prosecutor.”

  “That is all of our case. We had already rested.”

  “The defense does not intend to put on any evidence,” Perry Mason said.

  Judge Decker looked down at Eva Elliott. “Despite the fact that it is highly irregular, the Court is not satisfied to have the matter disposed of in this manner. Miss Elliott, did you kill George Casselman?”

  “I shot him,” she said. “I took the gun out of Mr. Garvin’s safe to use as a bluff, to frighten him. Then he tried to choke me. He was trying to break my neck. Everything was going black, and I heard something go boom … and then I could breathe again.”

  “And with what gun did you try to bluff him?”

  “The gun I had taken from Mr. Garvin’s safe earlier that afternoon.”

  “And what did you do with that gun?”

  “I put it in Mr. Garvin’s shoulder holster while he was taking his shower. Then I put the other gun which had been in his shoulder holster in his safe.”

  Judge Decker gave the matter frowning consideration. “The Court is going to take a sixty-minute recess of its own motion,” he said. “In view of the fact that this witness is one called by the prosecution, it would seem that the prosecution is bound by her testimony.”

  “Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said, “we don’t want to be bound by the testimony of this witness until we can find out what happened during the noon hour, what inducements were made to this witness, what theatrical flimflam was arranged with those so-called bloodstained towels.”

  “The Court is not interested in your feelings in the matter,” Judge Decker said. “The Court is interested in administering justice. This is a most peculiar situation. The Court will take an adjournment for one hour. At the end of that time, the Court will again entertain a motion to instruct the jury to return a verdict of acquittal in the case pending against this defendant.”