There was comparative order in the courtroom, and Mason was able to move down the corridor, through the gate in the rail at the bar, and into his position at the counsel table.

  Hamilton Burger, who had been sitting over at the Prosecution table, arose nervously, came over to Mason, said, “I suppose you’ll want a continuance, Mason.”

  “Not in the least,” Mason said confidently.

  Burger was visibly disappointed. Finally he said, “Well, of course, the Court may feel there should be a more complete investigation.”

  “It’s your trial,” Mason said.

  Burger was still standing somewhat uncertainly behind Mason when Judge Keetley entered the courtroom. Counsel and spectators dutifully stood. The bailiff called court to order, and a deputy sheriff brought John Addison into the court.

  Burger started speaking almost immediately.

  “Your Honour,” he said grandiloquently, “it is always the desire of the prosecutor to be fair. I think that I would be remiss in my duties if I did not call the Court’s attention to the fact that it is necessary for the police and the Prosecution to re-evaluate the evidence. In justice to the defendant, I want to take time to examine that evidence more carefully.”

  “You wish a continuance?” Judge Keetley asked.

  “Yes, Your Honour.”

  “For how long?”

  “At least one week.”

  Judge Keetley looked at Mason.

  Mason smiled, and shook his head. “Your Honour,” he said, “the defendant objects. This is the time heretofore fixed for the preliminary examination of this defendant. If the Prosecution had sufficient evidence to warrant the Court in binding the defendant over, no new evidence which adds to that can change the situation. If the new evidence refutes the position of the Prosecution, my client is entitled to vindication. I want the case to go on.

  “I call the Court’s attention to the sections of the Penal Code providing that the examination must be completed at one session unless the magistrate, for good cause shown by affidavit, postpones it. The postponement cannot be for more than two days at each time, nor more than six days in all, unless by consent or on motion of the defendant.

  “If I may have the privilege of reopening my cross-examination of one or two of the Prosecution’s witnesses, I will consent to a continuance for one week.”

  “That seems a reasonable condition,” Judge Keetley said. “What witnesses do you wish to cross-examine, Mr Mason?”

  “I will first cross-examine the witness, Eric Hansell.”

  “Come forward, Mr Hansell.”

  “Who? Me?” Hansell asked, surprised.

  “Yes, you,” Mason said.

  “Come forward, Mr Hansell,” Judge Keetley repeated.

  His manner showing apprehension, Hansell slowly walked toward the witness chair. As he went past Mason, the lawyer said under his breath, “Wise guy!”

  Hansell turned, glared at Mason, then took the witness stand.

  “Now, then,” Mason said, “suppose you tell us a little more about your blackmailing technique, Mr Hansell. Isn’t it a fact that in this case you used a feminine accomplice, a woman who posed as the mother of Veronica Dale, a woman who could assist you in putting on pressure for a financial settlement?”

  “Definitely not!” Hansell said.

  “And you,” Mason went on, “used such an accomplice in this case to take the part of Laura Mae Dale?”

  “Definitely not.”

  Mason said, “Hansell, a preliminary check-up of the list of licence numbers which were in Veronica Dale’s small notebook shows that the owners of these cars all had picked up Veronica Dale, had given her a ride, and had given her, for the most part, some money.”

  “I can’t help that,” Hansell sneered. “If these old goats want to fall for a broad and give her dough, you can’t hold me responsible for it.”

  “And some of the cases,” Mason said, “those where Veronica had been able to manoeuvre the car owners into a compromising position, had been paying blackmail, and the person to whom they had been paying was a redhead named Eric Hansell. What have you to say to that?”

  Hamilton Burger was on his feet. “Your Honour, I object. This is not proper cross-examination. I hold no brief for this man, but certainly these other crimes …”

  “I’m going to overrule the objection,” Judge Keetley said. “Let him answer the question, and when he does, Mr Burger, may I call your attention to the fact that he has not been given immunity for these other acts of blackmail, if it should appear there were such acts of blackmail. And I don’t think your office should try to keep whitewashing him. Now then, the Court’s going to rule that this question calls for a part of the res gestae. Answer the question, Mr Hansell.”

  Hansell squirmed on the witness stand. “I want to see a lawyer,” he said.

  “Answer the question,” Mason told him.

  “I can’t. I’m not going to.”

  “Upon what grounds do you refuse?” Judge Keetley asked.

  “On the grounds that it would incriminate me.”

  Judge Keetley nodded to Hamilton Burger. “Now, Mr District Attorney,” he said, “you’ve been very diligent in working up certain aspects of this case. Suppose you instruct the police to go to work with equal diligence and work out these cases against this blackmailer.”

  “Yes, Your Honour,” Hamilton Burger said sheepishly.

  Mason said, “Hansell, you worked hand in glove with Veronica on a commission basis, didn’t you?”

  “I refuse to answer.”

  “And Veronica arranged to get herself arrested for vagrancy so that Addison would have his own attorney get her out and thereby lay himself open to blackmail?”

  “I refuse to answer, on the ground that that will incriminate me.”

  “You’ve already been given immunity in that case,” Mason said. “Therefore you need fear no prosecution and can claim no privilege.”

  “All right. That’s the answer. I worked it out that way, yes.”

  “Then you rang in another woman as Veronica’s mother?”

  “Mr Mason, I’m telling you straight, I don’t know anything about that woman who posed as Veronica’s mother. Veronica and I worked the game between us, and the two of us were all we needed. We didn’t need … say, wait a minute, I’m talking too much.”

  “You certainly are,” Mason said dryly.

  There was a moment of tense, dramatic silence.

  Mason’s smile was contemptuous. “That’s all. I have no further questions. I have now concluded my cross-examination and am willing to consent to a one week’s continuance.”

  Judge Keetley glanced at Hamilton Burger. “Do you have any questions on redirect of this witness?”

  “None, Your Honour.”

  Eric Hansell pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his perspiring forehead, cleared his throat nervously, then, in place of returning the handkerchief to his pocket, sat on the witness chair twisting the handkerchief around and around his fingers, pulling it tight, then twisting it again.

  Suddenly the realization of what he was doing came to him and he guiltily thrust the handkerchief into his pocket.

  Mason stood calmly contemptuous, sardonically watching Hansell’s hands.

  Judge Keetley broke the silence.

  “The case,” he announced, “will be continued for one week. The defendant is remanded to custody and Court is adjourned.”

  His banging gavel was the signal for the release of a babble of conversation in the courtroom.

  Mason picked up Paul Drake and Della Street, moved out into the corridor.

  Drake said, “You certainly gave Hansell something to think about.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Did he do it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Mason said. “I simply had to use him as a red herring to keep the district attorney from knowing what I really have in mind.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “We’ll talk that over in the car,” Mason said.

  Driving back to the office in Mason’s car, Paul Drake said, “You certainly have Hamilton Burger about half crazy, Perry. He started out with what looked like a dead open-and-shut case and now he’s running around in circles. And what’s driving him crazy is that right now he hasn’t the faintest idea who killed Edgar Ferrell.”

  Mason said, “I think I know who killed him, Paul.”

  “Who?”

  Mason said, “Let’s look at the evidence. In the first place, Ferrell wanted that house for something. What?”

  “A love nest,” Drake said. “The cute little redhead at the fountain pen and automatic pencil counter …”

  “Would have turned up her pretty little nose at a dump like that,” Mason interrupted. “But let’s look at the significance of certain dates we have heretofore passed up.”

  “What dates?”

  Mason said, “Ferrell left on his vacation. He told his partner he was going trout fishing up in the Northwest, and he told his redheaded friend at the fountain pen counter he was planning on putting across a big business deal and was going to make his headquarters in a country place.”

  “That’s right,” Drake said.

  Mason said, “Several things complicated the case, Paul, so that the issues weren’t clear for a time. But now they’re becoming clarified.”

  “How come?”

  Mason said, “Lorraine Ferrell must have gone out to that house on the night of the murder. She must have gone in. She must have found evidences that Veronica Dale had been there. She and her husband must have had something of a row.”

  “But police didn’t find her fingerprints there,” Drake said.

  “Oh, yes, they did,” Mason said. “They found her prints all over the place, just as they found Addison’s because she had gone out there with Addison when they discovered the body …”

  “That’s right,” Drake interrupted. “I’d forgotten about that.”

  “And the police,” Mason said, “have no way of knowing when those fingerprints were made, whether they were made the night the body was discovered or the night the murder was committed.”

  Again Drake nodded.

  “Now, then,” Mason said, “we come to another peculiar phase of the case. Out in Della Street’s apartment we found six empty cartridge cases. I’m satisfied they were the empty cartridge cases from the murder gun. For some reason the murderer had taken those away from the scene of the crime. I thought for a while it might have been a police plant, but it wasn’t. Someone else must have planted the evidence.”

  “Who?”

  Mason said, “It narrows down to two people. Veronica Dale was in the apartment and had an opportunity to plant the evidence, and so did Lorraine Ferrell. Veronica Dale had a much better and more favourable opportunity than Lorraine.”

  “Then one or the other of them must be guilty, Perry, and the way it looks now, it’s probably Mrs Ferrell.”

  “She was very anxious to see me for a while,” Mason said, “and then suddenly she changed her mind. I think she was about to confess to me that she had gone out there the night of the murder. Then I think she changed her mind. And, of course, that business about just happening to see her husband’s car on the street was sheer poppycock. She knew he wasn’t on a vacation. She knew he’d bought that house. She’d had a bitter fight with him. She wanted Addison to investigate, find out what was happening and report to her. That would give her a corroborating witness and would make Addison partisan to her side of the case. That’s probably one of the reasons she didn’t tell him about her visit to her husband’s country place the night of the quarrel. Another reason may well have been that she heard the sound of shots. Remember, the way the time element has to work out, she must either have met that other car coming down the driveway, or must have seen it turn in just as she was driving out. It’s not too remote a guess to surmise she stopped her own car when she got to the highway and listened, may even have walked part way back. Anyhow, she wanted Addison to be her stalking horse. So she rang up Addison with this cock-and-bull story about the redheaded chick in the automobile. Incidentally, Paul, Della says Mrs Ferrell’s in love with John Addison.”

  “Could be, all right,” Drake said.

  “I know she’s in love with him,” Della Street said quietly. “I watched her eyes when she talked about him. I watched the expression on her face. I listened to the tone of her voice when she mentioned his name.”

  “Then she must be in pretty much of a stew with Addison in all this mess,” Drake said.

  “She is,” Mason commented briefly.

  “What about the dates, Perry?”

  “Anything strike you as particularly significant about the dates taken for vacations in this case, Paul?”

  “I don’t get what you’re driving at, Perry. Of course, it was a peculiar time for Ferrell to take a vacation to go on a fishing trip. Say, wait a minute, Perry! My gosh, this isn’t trout fishing season!”

  “Exactly,” Mason said.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Drake commented.

  “Furthermore,” Mason went on, “the vacation was to be of two weeks’ duration. Farrell was to get back in time for one particularly important piece of business.”

  “What’s that?” Drake asked. “I missed it.”

  It was Della Street who explained. “The annual stockholders’ meeting.”

  Mason nodded, said, “Now notice something else rather peculiar. I ring up the department store and try to talk with the manager of the personnel department who is, incidentally, the treasurer of the corporation, Myrtle C Northrup. What happens? I’m advised that she too has gone on her vacation. Rather a peculiar time to take vacations, don’t you think?”

  “What the heck!” Drake said. “What’s going on here?”

  Mason said, “Ferrell and Addison hated each other. They both owned an equal amount of stock. There were a few blocks of stock which had been distributed among the faithful employees of the store. Those employees ordinarily would never have taken sides. In fact, it was part of the policy of the heads of the company to refrain from discussing any matters of policy at the stockholders’ meetings. The directors handled all of those, and Myrtle Northrup was the only person present at those directors’ meetings. The other stockholders gave her their proxies.”

  “Say, what are you getting at?” Drake asked.

  “I don’t rightly know myself,” Mason told him. “I’m simply calling your attention to significant facts. Now, then,” Mason went on, “of all the people in this case, there’s one phoney, one person who took desperate chances in order to get something she wanted.”

  “Who?”

  “The woman, whoever she was, who called on me in my office and said she was Laura Mae Dale, Veronica’s mother.”

  “Who do you suppose she was?”

  Mason said, “Let’s look at it this way, Paul. Where do you suppose she got the information?”

  “What information?”

  “She knew that Veronica’s mother was named Laura Mae Dale. She knew that the mother ran a restaurant in a small suburb of Indianapolis. She didn’t know Veronica’s correct age. She knew Veronica had a job at the department store and at what salary. Now, where could the have secured that much accurate information and yet had her erroneous information about the girl’s age?”

  “I don’t know,” Drake said.

  “It must have been from Veronica herself,” Della Street said.

  Mason nodded.

  Mason drove in silence for a few blocks, and both Della Street and Paul Drake were engrossed in their own thoughts as they tried to dovetail the facts Mason had presented into some logical pattern.

  “But why on earth did this woman come to us with that story?” Della Street asked. “She must have known she was going to get exposed later on. She must have realized she was taking chances.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “why did she come to us?”

  “I don’t get it. Unless she was mixed up with Eric Hansell the way you intimated.”

  “When I asked those questions,” Mason said, “I wanted to look at Hansell’s face. His face told me more than his answers. He’s scared stiff, but he is, I think, frightened of something else. Probably, he has such a long list of blackmail on which there have been no prosecutions, he’s afraid of that coming out.”

  Drake said, “Well, one thing’s certain. Hansell and Veronica were standing in together with a blackmail racket. An examination of those licence numbers, coupled with interviews from some fifty-two of the cars’ owners, showed that nearly all of them made some substantial donation to Veronica, and one or two of them, who had put themselves in a position which might have been considered as compromising, paid blackmail. In every instance, Hansell walked in and collected.”

  “And, of course, made some settlement with Veronica,” Mason said. “After all, you know Veronica tried to get arrested for vagrancy that night the police picked her up.”

  “Well, then,” Drake said, “this other woman, this fake mother, is a part of the blackmailing ring. She …”

  “But why did they need her?”

  Drake grinned and said, “Be your age, Perry. They wanted a mother who could show righteous indignation, talk about the blasted good name of her daughter and then be willing to settle for a cash consideration.”

  “But they didn’t need her in this case, and the other cases show there was no mother angle involved. Veronica let them pick her up, get fatherly; then Hansell showed up with the newspaper angle. In fact these men hadn’t really done anything to Veronica. They wouldn’t have been moved by any outraged-mother act. No, there’s no slightest evidence to show this outfit had any accomplice, just Hansell and Veronica working together, hitchhiking, making touches on a hard luck story and then, in proper cases, the blackmailing shakedown.”

  “What does that add up to, Perry?”

  “That woman,” Mason said, “came to me because she wanted something.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And,” Mason went on, “the best way to determine what a person wants is by surveying what he gets.”

  “What did this woman get?”

  “She got a receipt,” Mason said, “showing that she had paid me one hundred and fifty dollars in full settlement for an charges in the case of the People versus Veronica Dale.”