“Thanks,” Mason said. “How are you coming with your case?”

  “Not very well, I’m afraid.”

  “What’s the trouble?” Mason asked.

  “I only wish I knew,” Neely told him, “but I just can’t seem to get anywhere.”

  “Perhaps there isn’t anywhere to get,” Mason told him, laughing.

  Neely seemed undecided for a moment, then blurted out, “Mr. Mason, how do you cross-examine a man who has made a positive identification, when you feel that the identification is the result of a mistake, or perhaps that the man is deliberately lying?”

  Mason laughed. “That’s like asking a mountaineer how he goes about climbing a mountain. It all depends on the mountain. Generally, of course, you start going up and keep going up until you get to the top, but sometimes you go up rock chimneys, sometimes you climb ledges, sometimes you skirt around in order to find a more advantageous place. What’s the matter? Do you think this witness is lying?”

  “I don’t think the defendant is guilty.”

  “Well, that’s a good way to feel,” Mason told him reassuringly.

  “I—oh, I know I have no right to take up your time and—I—but, Mr. Mason, I feel so futile, so helpless, so utterly at a loss as to what to do next.”

  ‘What’s the case?” Mason asked.

  “This girl, Evelyn Bagby, is a waitress who was on her way to look for work in Los Angeles. She was driving an old model car which broke down. She had to have a part for it and because it’s such an ancient wreck it was necessary to send to Los Angeles for a part from a junkyard. Evelyn waited over in Corona in the motel for the part to come. This Irene Keith, whose jewelry was stolen, is a rich girl who was to be bridesmaid at a wedding in Las Vegas. The wedding party was to make a rendezvous in Corona at a cocktail bar and then go over in a wedding procession. You probably read about it. Helene Chaney, the actress, was to be the bride. Irene Keith had several suitcases containing lots of jewelry. Some of it was the wedding presents, some of it her personal jewelry, some of it was He-lene’s jewelry. Helene was riding with Irene Keith. They’d parked the car and gone to the cocktail bar to wait for the others. When they came out Irene Keith noticed the lid of the trunk compartment was raised. She looked in the suitcases. The jewelry was gone, some forty-thousand dollars’ worth. They notified the police. The police felt someone at the motel across the street from the cocktail bar might have seen the car standing there and done a little exploring. Then this man, Harry Boles, heard about the loss on the radio. He came forward and gave the police a description. They checked and found my client, Evelyn Bagby, was staying at the motel. She matched the description given by Boles. Police picked her up, searched her suitcase and found some of the jewelry.”

  “Some of the jewelry?” Mason asked sharply.

  Neely nodded. “A diamond bracelet.”

  “What became of the rest of the stuff?”

  “They think she must have hidden it.”

  “Why would she have hidden part and not all?”

  “They haven’t advanced any theory on that. They’re leaving that up to me to explain.”

  “Any question about the bracelet being part of the stolen jewelry?” Mason asked.

  “No. It’s the same.”

  “Makes it look rather black, doesn’t it?” Mason said.

  “It does, but she—Mr. Mason, I just don’t think she’s guilty.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a hunch.”

  Mason nodded. “You’ll find your hunches are often right.”

  “I did so want to do a good job on this case.”

  “Naturally,” Mason said.

  “She hasn’t any money, and the Court appointed me as the attorney to defend her. Of course, it’s just a routine run-of-the-mill case as far as the Court is concerned, and you know how those things go. They feel that a young lawyer has to get experience before he’s any good, and they see that he gets experience by appointing him on these cases where the defendant has no money. I’ve worked terribly hard on this. I’ve sat up nights briefing the law. I think I know the law forward, backward and sideways. I’ve got instructions prepared for the jury, but somehow I feel they aren’t going to do any good. I have an idea the jury has already made up its mind.”

  “When did it make up its mind?” Mason asked.

  “Right after Harry Boles took the witness stand and identified the defendant. I could feel the whole thing change.”

  “Does the defendant have any past record?”

  “Apparently not.”

  Mason said, “Look here, Neely, I drove up to get some papers signed. Come on and have lunch with me and we’ll talk it over.”

  “I—well, I’d sure like to, Mr. Mason, but I—you see, I—well, I had a luncheon engagement, but you wait, Mr. Mason, I’ll break it.”

  ‘With the young woman who was waiting in the courtroom?” Mason asked.

  Neely flushed, nodded.

  “Bring her along,” Mason told him.

  “Oh, could I, Mr. Mason? She’d be thrilled. She-well, I’m hoping she’ll be Mrs. Neely one of these days when I get my practice built up here, and I think I can do that if I get any kind of a break. My dad has lots of friends and we’ve lived here for years.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “we’ll pick her up but we’ll try not to talk shop while we’re eating.”

  Neely’s face fell. “I thought—I wanted—” Mason shook his head and smiled. “This is going to be your case,” he said. “If you come out on top it must be your triumph. We’ll have lunch and then you’ll tell her that you have to be back here by half-past one. That will give us half an hour in the law library. I’ll pretend that you’re Boles on the stand and I’ll cross-examine you. Perhaps in that way you can get some ideas.”

  Neely tried to find words with which to express himself, but could only shake Mason’s hand. Finally he said, “You’re a lifesaver, Mr. Mason. I think I know law. I had good marks all through law school, but when you get into a courtroom and find yourself confronted with a witness who just grins at you in a patronizing way and won’t budge an inch, you feel as though—well, it’s like a dream where you’re having a fight and keep swinging with all your might and your punches have no more force than if you had feathers for arms.”

  “I know exactly how you feel,” Mason said. “We’ll try and explore a few possibilities after lunch.”

  Chapter 2

  Promptly at one-thirty-five Mason closed the door of the law library, seated Frank Neely in a chair, stood above him and said, “Now you’re going to be Harry Boles. I’m going to be you. I’m cross-examining you. So far as possible you’ll answer my questions just as Boles has been answering yours.”

  Neely nodded. There was an air of greater confidence about him.

  “And when you get back into court,” Mason went on, “you’re going to remember certain things. One of them is that you have to hold the interest of a jury. You can’t do it by fumbling around with papers. Any time you make a pass at a witness and then quit and start fumbling around with papers you make it appear that you don’t know what you’re doing, that the witness has the best of you. You’re going to keep throwing questions at the witness. Rapid-fire questions. You aren’t going to pause for anything. You’re just going to keep slamming questions at him. Do you understand?”

  Neely nodded lugubriously. “You can’t think up questions that fast—I can’t. He’s said he saw her taking the suitcase out of the car and taking things out of the suitcase. I have to keep asking him if he’s certain he saw her and—well, we just go over and over it and he’s prejudicing the jury against my client every time he answers. But I can’t think of anything else to ask him. What else is there?”

  Mason laughed. “We’ll see,” he said. “Furthermore, you mustn’t, under any circumstances, keep going over the same things he’s testified to in the same order.”

  “But I have to do that,” Neely said. “He’s testified that he saw her. He’s identified her and I’ve got to keep asking him—”

  “That’s fine,” Mason broke in, “but don’t ask him in the same order that he’s given his testimony. Go at him from a different angle.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps I can show you what I mean,” Mason said. “All right, now you’re Boles. You give me the answers that Boles has been giving you. If you don’t know what the answers are make up answers that you think will be the most damaging to the defendant. Now can you do that?”

  “That,” Neely said, “is going to be easy. I’ve been on the receiving end all morning. I’d like to throw some answers back at you.”

  “All right,” Mason said. “Here we go. You’re ready?”

  Neely nodded.

  “Now,” Mason said, pointing his finger at the young lawyer, “you have testified that you saw the defendant taking the suitcase from the back of the automobile, putting it on the ground and bending over it to open it?”

  “That’s right,” Neely said, and then added vindictively, “It was the defendant, all right. I saw her do it.”

  “Now you indicated the manner in which she had bent over,” Mason said, “when I asked you to illustrate to the jury. You bent from the waist, keeping your knees straight.”

  “That’s right. That’s the way she bent over.”

  “You had no reason to notice her particularly at that time, did you?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She was just a woman taking a suitcase from a car that was parked in front of a motel. There’s nothing unusual about that. It happens every night in the year.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “So you didn’t notice her particularly at that time, did you?”

  Neely grinned triumphantly. “Oh but I did. You’re forgetting that I said my attention was attracted to her legs as she bent over.”

  “You saw those legs?”

  “Yes.”

  “They attracted your attention?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Good-looking legs?”

  “Very.”

  “When she bent over you saw them?”

  “That’s right. Her skirts lifted, and I—well, I looked.”

  “You saw them up far enough to attract your attention?”

  “Just about to the knees.”

  “And you say she took something out of the suitcase?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What did she do with it?”

  “Put it in her pockets.”

  “Now was there a pocket in her suit,” Mason asked, “or did she put it in the side pocket of that topcoat?”

  “In the side pockets of the topcoat that’s People’s Exhibit C, hanging up there by the blackboard.”

  “That’s fine,” Mason said. “So then she must have had the topcoat on at the time and she put the stuff that she took out of the suitcase, whatever it was, in the pockets of the topcoat?”

  “That’s right, in the pockets on both sides. Then she closed the suitcase and put it back in the car.”

  “Now then,” Mason said, “that’s a rather full-skirted topcoat. I’m going to ask the defendant to step forward and put that coat on. Then I’m going to ask her to turn her back to the jury and bend down just as the witness Boles said she did, and we’ll see how much of her legs the witness could see.”

  Neely looked at Mason and his eyes widened in astonishment. “Good Lord,” he said, “I never thought of that!”

  “Neither did Boles,” Mason said. “Now I’m going to ask you a couple of other questions in your role of Boles. You say that you saw the defendant at that time. When did you see her next?”

  “I saw her at a line-up in the police station in Corona.”

  “That isn’t what I asked you,” Mason said, shaking his finger in the young man’s face. “I asked you when you saw her next. I want to know the very next time you saw this defendant after this episode when you think you saw her at the back of that automobile.”

  “Why, I—the next time I saw her was in the line-up.”

  “Are you sure?” Mason asked.

  Neely nodded, but there was something about his nod that made it lack emphasis.

  Mason laughed. “You seem to be a little dubious, Neely.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth,” Neely said, “I never asked Boles that question in exactly that way.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because I didn’t think it would do me any good. You see, the witness testified that he saw her there at the automobile, and then he testified that he picked her out of a line-up at the police station in Corona.”

  “But did he say specifically that that was the next time he had seen her?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Neely admitted. “He intimated it, but he didn’t say so in so many words.”

  “Keep after him,” Mason said. “Find out if, when he went to the police and gave the description, the police didn’t pick this girl up and if they then didn’t go get Boles and ask him to take a surreptitious look at her and see if she was the woman. When he said that she was, then the police put her in a line-up.”

  “Why that would—that would be almost the same as perjury because he certainly conveyed the impression that the next time he had seen her was in the line-up.”

  “Never mind the impression,” Mason said. “Bore into him. Give it to him hammer and tongs. Don’t let him have any time to think in between questions. The minute he answers one question, fire another one at him.”

  “I can’t think of questions that fast,” Neely said. “That’s been my trouble this morning. I’d try to think of something to ask him and my mind would go blank.”

  “Don’t let your mind go blank,” Mason told him. “Keep throwing questions at him, any questions. Ask him what the weather was. Ask him what kind of tires were on the automobile. Whether they were white sidewall or not. Ask him exactly where the car was parked. How many feet from the corner. How many inches from the curb. Ask him how he happened to be there. Ask him if he was walking, or ask him if he stopped walking. If he had stopped walking to watch the girl, find out when he stopped walking and why. How long he stood there. Ask him how he happened to be there, where he’d been, how long he’d been there, where he was going, what stopped him, when he started walking again. Just keep throwing questions at him and all the time keep watching him like a hawk, using your powers of concentration to remember everything he says and to correlate every answer, looking for a weak spot.”

  “Gosh, Mr. Mason, do you have to think of all those things at once?”

  Mason said, “If you’re going to be a trial lawyer, you not only have to think of all those things but in addition you’ve got to keep watching the jurors out of the corner of your eye. You’ve got to see what impresses them and what doesn’t. You’ve got to see when they’re getting bored, and when they’re getting bored you’ve got to do something spectacular that will arouse their interest. You’ve got to keep thinking about the record. You’ve got to keep watching for errors. You’ve got to keep an eye on the Court. You’ve got to frame your questions so they’re calling for evidence that is legally admissible and not have your questions couched in such phraseology that the other side can object and have the objection sustained. That makes the jury feel you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “But, good Lord, you can’t think of all those things at once.”

  “You will,” Mason told him, grinning. “You’ll get so they’re automatic. You’ll be able to stand on your feet, throw out a steady stream of questions, and keep thinking of all those things and half a dozen others. Now I’ve got to go on back to my office. You go in there and tear into that witness.”

  “Do you think he’s lying, Mr. Mason?”

  Mason shrugged his shoulders. “He may be lying. He may be telling the truth. He may be telling what he thinks is the truth. I’ll tell you one thing though—he didn’t see that young woman’s legs when she was bending over, not if she had that coat on. That’s a long, full-skirted coat. You put it on her shoulders and have her bend over and you won’t see any legs.”

  “I never thought of that,” Neely said, “and I should have. I—well, now you’ve pointed it out it’s just as plain as day.”

  Mason glanced at his watch, reached out and shook hands with Neely. “Go on in there,” he said, “and do your stuff. And remember, it’s your stuff. Don’t tell anyone about this little session with me.”

  Chapter 3

  In his office mason glanced through the section of the morning newspaper devoted to out-of-the-city news.

  “Looking for something special?” Della Street, his secretary, asked.

  Mason nodded. “Probably there won’t be anything in here, but there was a case up in Riverside that interested me. I—oh-oh, here it is.”

  “What?” Della Street asked.

  Mason folded the newspaper and handed it to her to read.

  ‘Well,” she said, “a young man by the name of Neely seems to have made a brilliant cross-examination in the case involving Helene Chaney’s bridesmaid. The identification witness broke down and became covered with confusion; the defendant, Evelyn Bagby, testified that someone must have planted the article of stolen jewelry in her cabin. The Court instructed the jury that mere possession of stolen property standing alone was not enough to justify a conviction; that there must be some other circumstance; that if they believed the defendant’s explanation, they couldn’t convict her.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Why are you grinning like a Cheshire cat?” Della Street asked.

  “Oh,” Mason said, “I happened to look in on the case, for ten or fifteen minutes before the noon adjournment,, and I was wondering how it came out.”

  Della Street looked at him sharply. “You had no other interest?”

  “I thought that the young lawyer who was representing the woman was doing a pretty good job.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Of course,” Mason said.

  Her steady eyes surveyed the lawyer with the appraisal born of long experience. She picked up his expense account, said, “I see you had guests for lunch. Who were they?”