The Case of the Counterfeit Eye (21 page)

Perry Mason nodded, and said, almost casually, "Naturally, your Honor, I didn't want to make the statement, and wouldn't have done it unless the Court had forced me to do so, but you insisted that I was advising this young woman not to answer questions upon the ground that the answers would incriminate her, merely because I wanted to protect myself instead of her. I think your Honor will now see that I knew what I was doing."

Judge Winters started to say something, but he was interrupted by Burger, who lunged to his feet, holding in his right hand a photograph of a woman's full face and profile, below which appeared a printed description and a set of finger-prints.

He held in his other hand a photographic print of a set of finger-prints. He shook both papers at Perry Mason.

"Are these," he demanded of Perry Mason, "the finger-prints that were left on that doorway?"

"That is a photograph of the finger-prints, yes."

"And, do they correspond identically with the finger-prints appearing on this document which I hold in my right hand?"

"They do," Mason said.

"Then," shouted Burger, shaking the paper at Perry Mason, "some hocus-pocus has been practiced here, because the photograph of this female Bluebeard isn't the photograph of this young woman at all!"

Perry Mason smiled serenely at him.

"That," he said, "is something you can tell the Grand Jury."

Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom.

A bailiff appeared at Mason's elbow.

"Judge Winters would like to see you and the district attorney in his chambers," the bailiff said.

Mason nodded, accompanied the bailiff to the Judge's chambers. A moment later, the district attorney entered.

Burger glowered across at Mason and became frigidly dignified. "You wish to see me, Judge?" he asked.

"I want to discuss the very peculiar development of this situation with you gentlemen," he said.

"I have nothing whatever to discuss with Perry Mason," Burger announced. "Whether this woman is or is not Hazel Fenwick has nothing to do with Perry Mason's appearance before the Grand Jury."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," Burger called.

Judge Winters looked up in frowning annoyance. The door pushed open, and Sergeant Holcomb entered the room.

"You'll pardon me for taking liberties, Judge," Burger said, "but, under the circumstances, I have asked Sergeant Holcomb to place Perry Mason in custody."

"Custody for what?" Mason asked.

"Tampering with witnesses," Burger snapped.

"But she wasn't a witness. She didn't know one single thing about the case. She hadn't even followed it in the newspapers. She was a total stranger."

"You sent her to Reno to masquerade as Hazel Fenwick, thereby assisting the real Hazel Fenwick to escape."

"I did nothing of the sort. Hazel Fenwick had already made her escape before I even met Thelma Bevins. In view of the information I gave you in court, it should be very apparent why Hazel Fenwick had concealed herself. Doubtless the police will apprehend her. Now that they know more about her, they will be on the watch for her.

"And, as for advising this young woman to masquerade as Hazel Fenwick, I did nothing of the sort. I sent a man to serve some papers in Reno. I sent this woman to accept service of those papers. At the time the service was made, she told the man specifically and particularly that she was not Hazel Fenwick, that her name was Thelma Bevins, but that she was willing to accept service of the papers.

"For reasons of my own, I desired to have it appear that service of the papers had been made in Reno, Nevada. What those reasons are can have nothing to do with this case."

"But why did you do it?" Judge Winters said sternly. "That's the thing I'm getting at. I don't care to discuss this matter in public until after I've talked it over with you privately. But it seems to me that you have deliberately used the whole process of this Court to make everyone in connection with this case appear ridiculous, doubtless hoping to secure some advantage. If that is true, you have been guilty of a flagrant contempt of court and I intend to fine you and imprison you."

"I have done nothing," Mason said. "I didn't bring this young woman here. In fact, under my instructions, she refused voluntarily to leave Nevada. You will doubtless find that because of connivance between the district attorney and the Nevada authorities, she was virtually forced to leave the state and come here."

"She was a vital witness. I had a court subpoena for her, and the subpoena was served on her," Burger said.

"Exactly," Mason told him. "You are the one that brought her here. You were the one who assumed she was Hazel Fenwick. I didn't bring her here. I didn't make any such assumption. I didn't put her on the stand."

"But what did you hope to gain by doing it?" Judge Winters asked. "Why did you advise her not to answer questions?"

"I'll answer that question," Perry Mason told him, "only upon condition that I may answer it fully and completely and without being interrupted."

"I make no promises," Burger said, "except that you are going before the Grand Jury and that in the meantime you are going to consider yourself in custody."

"I," Judge Winters said, "will be glad to hear your explanation. I feel that it is due me and, perhaps, is due you. You have the reputation for being a very clever and adroit attorney. There is usually some reason back of what you do. I would be glad to know what it was in this case."

"Very well, Judge," Mason said. "Everyone in this room has lost sight of the fact that there is one man who had reason to fear Hazel Fenwick more than any other mortal on earth. That man is the murderer of Hartley Basset.

"He didn't know what Hazel Fenwick looked like. Therefore, if the district attorney should produce some woman who apparently was Hazel Fenwick and put her on the stand, that man would think that the jig was up. He would naturally resort to flight.

"I think you are all overlooking the significance of my comments in court to the effect that Brunold could not have committed this crime because he would not have deliberately placed his own eye in Hartley Basset's hand after the murder had been committed. Nor, on the other hand, could the eye have been snatched from its socket by Hartley Basset, nor even if we are to suppose that it could, would Brunold have deliberately masked the balance of his face, but left visible the empty socket, which would have been one of the most sure means of identification.

"On the other hand, if some other person in that household had an artificial eye and that fact was not suspected by any of the other persons in the house, he would have gone to great lengths to have made it appear that the crime was committed by a person who had only one eye, feeling that by so doing he was directing suspicion to Brunold.

"I tried to get photographs of every one of the persons in that house, facing a strong light. As you are doubtless aware, it is very difficult to detect an artificial eye where the eye is well made, matched and fitted, and where the socket has not in any wise been destroyed. However, a natural eye adjusts itself to light, the pupil dilating or contracting, while an artificial eye obviously cannot make such adjustments. Therefore, a person photographed facing a bright light would show pupils of unequal diameter if he had one glass eye.

"It happened that Colemar refused to pose for a photograph. That made me quite suspicious of Colemar. I am now wondering if Colemar didn't think the young woman who was placed on the stand by the district attorney was the missing witness who could positively identify him and that, as soon as the legal wrangling between counsel was over, she would unhesitatingly do so. I think, therefore, it might be well to check up upon the present whereabouts of Mr. Colemar."

At that moment the telephone rang, and Judge Winters picked up the receiver, placed it to his ear and said, "Just a moment." He nodded to Perry Mason.

"A young lady," he said, "wishes to speak with you."

Mason put the receiver to his ear and heard Della Street's voice coming over the wire.

"Cheerio, Chief," she said. "Are you still out of jail?"

He grinned into the transmitter and said, "Half and half – half in and half out."

"Well," she said, "I was just a little bit dumb. I didn't realize what you were up to with that Bevins girl until after I heard you advising her not to answer questions. Then I saw a great white light."

"Good girl," he told her.

"So," she said, "I made up my mind that I'd sort of stick around and see if any of the witnesses found occasion to leave the courtroom rather abruptly or surreptitiously."

"Good girl," he repeated. "Did you get any customers?"

"I'll say."

"Who?"

"Colemar."

"Did you tail him?"

"Yes."

"That," he told her, frowning, "was dangerous. You shouldn't have done it."

"You gave me a signal," she said. "I wasn't certain you meant everything was under control or whether you wanted me to take a tumble to your technique and trail along."

"Where is he now, Della?"

"He's at the Union Airport. A plane leaves in twenty-two minutes. He has a ticket for it."

"Be sure," he told her, "that you keep out of sight. The man's desperate."

"How's the case coming?" she asked.

"All finished," he told her. "You beat it up to the office. I'll meet you there."

"I want to see this thing through," she said. "You wait there in the Judge's chambers and let me call you if he takes another run-out powder."

"I don't want you hanging around. He may recognize you at any time and…"

She laughed lightly, said, "Cheerio, Chief," and hung up.

Perry Mason consulted his wrist-watch and looked at Sergeant Holcomb.

"It may interest you gentlemen to know that Colemar is at the Union Airport and will be there for approximately twenty-one minutes. It occurs to me, Sergeant, that if you made certain your gun was loaded you might make a rather spectacular arrest."

Holcomb looked at Burger. Burger frowned thoughtfully, then nodded his head. Sergeant Holcomb gained the door in three swift strides. Perry Mason, lounging on the arm of the chair, grinned across at Burger.

"Mason," the district attorney asked, somewhat sheepishly, "why the devil did you put on all that horse play?"

"It wasn't horse play," Mason insisted. "I ran into a bum break, that's all. The witness who could have cleared my client was wanted by the cops. She had to take a run-out powder. Naturally, I got the credit for her disappearance and it left my clients in a spot. I could probably have trapped Colemar on cross-examination, but I wanted as many strings to my bow as I could get. So I tried this stunt. I knew that if I could make him think the Fenwick woman had been returned and was going to be a witness against him he'd either have to kill her or resort to flight. He couldn't very well have killed her while she was in a courtroom surrounded by officers. So I put on an act to make him think the jig was up, but that he was going to have a few hours of grace while a bunch of lawyers were wrangling, back and forth. I figured he thought I really had spirited the girl away and that it would take a Grand Jury hearing to make her talk. That would give him a chance to run away."

"Would you," asked Judge Winters, "mind explaining to me exactly what happened? I find myself very much in the dark."

Mason nodded. "Colemar," he said, "was the partner of Harry McLane in an embezzlement. They embezzled money from Basset. Brunold was the father of Mrs. Basset's child. He'd spent years hunting for her after she had disappeared. When he found her, she was married. He called on her. The chauffeur, who was acting for Basset as spy, almost caught him. Brunold wanted her to leave Basset. She wasn't decided as to what she was going to do, but she did know that if Hartley Basset ever caught Brunold in her room, he would make a terrific scandal which would affect the boy. That was one of the things she didn't want. So she spirited Brunold out of the room. He dropped his glass eye when he was getting out – not the one he was wearing, but an extra one he carried in his pocket.

"Basset got that glass eye. He didn't know the identity of his wife's visitor, but he did know that Colemar had a glass eye. Apparently, he was the only one in the house who knew it. The eyes are pretty much the same color, if you'll notice. Basset got suspicious of Colemar, suspecting him of being intimate with his wife – something of which Colemar was entirely innocent. But, when Basset started checking up on Colemar, he uncovered evidence of Colemar's part in the embezzlement.

"Harry McLane went out to Basset's house, not to see Basset or to pay him off, but to force Colemar to kick through with enough of the embezzled money to keep Basset from prosecuting. About that time, Brunold was out making a final appeal to Mrs. Basset to leave the place, and Dick Basset was sending his young wife down to get acquainted with her father-in-law.

"Colemar thought he could intercede for McLane, that a little conversation might save a lot of cash. Basset called him on the glass eye business, sent him, probably, for some books of account, and showed his general suspicion. Colemar didn't bring the books. He picked up a quilt, a blanket and a gun, He also typed out a suicide note. Later on he suddenly realized that he would be the person logically suspected by the police if they weren't fooled by the suicide note – that was after the murder had been committed. So he cleaned the forged notes out of the file, extemporized a mask out of some carbon paper and ran out to show the woman who was waiting in the outer office that the murderer was a one-eyed man. He figured that would tie in nicely with the glass eye which Basset still held in his hand. When the woman surprised him by ripping off the mask, he was in a frenzy of panic. He struck her down and ran out of the place. He jumped in Basset's car, drove it away, then circled back to the garage, put up the car, came back and pretended he'd been to a movie. He found out then that he hadn't killed the Fenwick woman. He wanted to silence her forever. So he entered the room where the Fenwick girl was and kept hanging around. If he'd been left alone with her, he'd have killed her, but Mrs. Basset sent him out. Then he went up to his room and explained to McLane what had happened and that all McLane had to do was to insist he'd paid off the notes and no one could prove differently. That would have made it appear Basset had a lot of cash on him at the time of the murder and make the motive look like robbery."

Burger, staring at Perry Mason, said, "How do you know all this?"

"Simply by deductive reasoning," Mason said. "My God, Burger, it stuck out so plainly that it's a wonder it needed anyone to point it out to you. The murder must have been committed by a professional typist. The fake suicide note was written by a professional typist, someone who used the touch system. The murderer must also have been someone who was able to walk into Basset's study carrying something on his arm without attracting undue attention, because Basset didn't put up any fight, apparently hadn't sensed any danger. The murderer must have been someone with an artificial eye who wanted the authorities to know that he had an artificial eye. The only possible reason that a person would want to advertise his artificial eye was that he felt suspicion could thereby be directed on someone else.