The Case of the Daring Divorcee (16 page)

Della Street moved to the door which communicated with the short passageway leading to the reception room and a moment later a dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman stood on the threshold.

"Come in," Mason said.

Rosalie Blackburn flashed him a swift glance, then her eyes swung to Simley Beason. She lowered her eyes at once, hesitated, flashed Beason another glance, then entered the room.

Simley Beason got up from his chair, extended his hand for the package, said, "Rosalie, this is Mr. Mason, the famous attorney. You've heard a lot about him and read a lot about him-What the devil! What's happened to that package!"

"That was the way it was when I took it from the golf bag," Rosalie said.

"Why, the thing is all unwrapped. The whole paper has been cut open," Beason said. "You can see the gun-Rosalie, you didn't do this, did you?"

"No, sir. I brought it to you just the way it was."

"And my locker was closed and locked?"

"That's right. I got the key from the top left-hand drawer in your desk, where you keep it."

"Well, that's something," Beason said.

He started to unwrap the package, then hesitated and said, "Rosalie, if you'll go into Mason's outer office and just sit down and wait I'll be with you in a few minutes and drive you back."

"Thank you," she said, flashed a vague smile and turned and hurried from the office.

"As your secretary," Mason asked, "does she have rather an inordinate curiosity as to your affairs?"

"She's very efficient," Beason said, "but if you're asking me if she opened that package I'd stake my life that she didn't."

Mason said, "You may be staking just that.

"Della, put those wrappings in a carton and seal up the carton so we can get them at any time we may need them, and be careful not to get any more fingerprints on there than is necessary."

"Can you get fingerprints from paper?" Beason asked quickly.

"By using a new process, you can," Mason said. "Sometimes the fingerprints are startlingly clear and they last almost indefinitely. It's a different process from the usual type of latent fingerprint developing where you use powder and the powder sticks to the moisture of the latent finger. prints. These prints are the result of amino acids and are brought out by chemical, rather than a physical process."

"Gosh, I didn't know you could get fingerprints from paper," Beason said. "Of course my fingerprints are all over it and I presume Rosalie's will be all over it."

"I would certainly suppose so," Mason said. "You both seem to have handled it enough."

Della Street opened a closet door, took out a carton in which law books had been shipped. Carefully picking up the outer wrapping paper by the edges, she put it in the carton, then using equal care, removed the inner layer of paper and disclosed the blued steel revolver.

Mason bent forward, inserted a pencil in the barrel of the gun, lifted it gingerly to the desk, placed it in the drawer.

"Now," he said, "we'll call Lieutenant Tragg and tell him that the gun which I mentioned to him had been misplaced but I now have it."

"Had been misplaced covers quite a bit of territory," Della said.

"Exactly," Mason told her. "Give him a ring and use those words-the gun had been misplaced."

Mason said to Beason, "I don't think we need to detain you any longer, Beason. Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide is very efficient. He may get up here within the next few minutes. He'll undoubtedly be very anxious to get hold of that gun."

"Meaning that there's no longer any necessity for me to be here?" Beason asked.

"Meaning that it would be well for you not to be here," Mason said.

"You're going to try to protect me?"

"Hell no! I'm going to protect my client first," Mason snapped, "and after that I'm going to protect myself. You've stuck your neck into this thing and it's up to you to protect yourself."

Chapter Nine

Gertie's voice over the telephone was excited. "Lieutenant Tragg is in the office," she said, "accompanied by Mr. Hamilton Burger, the district attorney."

"Send them in," Mason said, and nodded to Della Street. "Do the honors, Della."

Della Street, with something of a flourish, opened the door connecting the passageway to the outer office.

Hamilton Burger and Tragg came striding into the room.

There was something of an apologetic, whimsical smile on Tragg's face, but Hamilton Burger's face was grim and official.

"Well, well, how do you do, gentlemen?" Mason said. "I suppose you're here in regard to the gun. Won't you sit down?"

Hamilton Burger said, "We're here in regard to a number of things. Most of those things have to do with that gun. Now, just what are you trying to pull here?"

"I'm trying to co-operate with the police," Mason said.

"A little of your co-operation goes a long, long way," Burger said, and nodded to Tragg.

"Where is the gun?" Tragg asked.

Mason opened the right-hand desk drawer.

Tragg said, "Why wasn't it in that drawer when I was here before?"

"It's a long story," Mason said.

"You said over the telephone that you had misplaced it."

"I beg your pardon," Mason said, "I think my secretary told you the gun had been misplaced."

"By whom?"

"Now, that's a long story," Mason said. "I'm debating with myself whether to tell you or not."

"Well, you'd better tell us," Hamilton Burger said, "because I'm doing a little debating myself. I'm going to have you before the grand jury and I don't know whether to try and get you for being an accessory after the fact on a murder charge or concealing and tampering with evidence."

"Under those circumstances," Mason said, "perhaps I had better not tell my story until I appear before the grand jury.

Burger said to Tragg, "Gan you check that gun for fingerprints?"

"You seldom find fingerprints on a gun," Tragg said. "Sometimes on an automatic you get a thumbprint on the base of the clip but you very seldom find prints on a gun. However, I'll process it for fingerprints as soon as we get to Headquarters."

Tragg inserted a pencil in the barrel of the gun, opened a dispatch case he was carrying, carefully fitted the gun into a metallic cradle and was about to close the lid when Burger said, "Look for the number."

Tragg again inserted the pencil in the barrel, lifted out the gun, then checked the number.

"The number," he said, "is C 48809."

Burger consulted his notebook. "All right," he said, "that's the first one he bought."

Burger regarded Mason thoughtfully. "I am going to tell you, Mason, if there's been any substitution of guns in this case I'm going to proceed against you. – . – I'll throw the book at you."

"What do you mean, substitution of guns?"

"Garvin Hastings bought two identical thirty-eightcaliber revolvers in his lifetime," Burger said. "We've looked up the records and find that one gun was purchased about two years ago, and one about fourteen months ago. When he bought the second gun he told the salesman at the sporting goods store that he wanted a weapon for his wife's protection."

"And this is the second gun?" Mason asked.

"This is the first gun."

"Then I don't see what all the shouting is about," Mason told him.

"I'll tell you what the shouting is about," Burger said. "You love to mix us up and mix guns up, and my best guess is that your client had access to both guns. You switched guns after firing a couple of shots from the wrong gun. I'll bet ten to one that when we process this gun at ballistics we'll find that it was not the gun that killed Hastings."

"In that event," Mason said, "you won't have a case against Adelle Hastings, will you?"

Burger said angrily, "I'm completely out of patience with you, Mason, and I'm out of patience with your tactics. We just may have a murder case against both Adelle Hastings and Perry Mason. If you've juggled the evidence I'm going to hold you as an accessory after the fact, and in this state the distinction between principals and acaccessories is abolished. In other words, I'll be holding you for murder."

"That's in the event this gun is not the fatal gun."

"That's right."

"But suppose it is the fatal gun?"

Hamilton Burger said, "Then I'll hold you for…"

"Yes?" Mason prompted, as Burger's voice trailed off.

"Before I go any further," Burger said, "I'm here to take an official statement from you as to why this gun wasn't available earlier in the day."

"All right, I'll tell you," Mason said. "Adelle Hastings told the story of the stolen purse and the gun to Simley Beason, who is the office manager for the Garvin Hastings Enterprises. Beason very unwisely felt that the gun might be incriminating evidence and he might help Adelle Hastings by removing that gun.

"He came to my office at six o'clock this morning, convinced a charwoman who was cleaning the office at that time that he was Perry Mason. He was carrying a brief case. He walked brazenly into the office, opened the drawer in my desk, took out the gun and took it to the offices of the Hastings Enterprises.

"He has a locker there. He wrapped the gun in tissue paper. Then wrapped it with brown paper. He typed out a label identifying the contents as being a gun that had been taken from the office of Perry Mason, put his signature on it, taped it to the paper and sealed the paper with tape."

"Why did he do all that?" Tragg asked.

"Because he wanted to protect Adelle Hastings and he was afraid that there was some possibility the claim might be made she had been the one who had taken the gun."

Tragg and Burger exchanged glances.

"Go ahead," Burger said. "You always have an almost plausible story. I'm not believing, but I'm listening."

"I knew that somebody had stolen the gun," Mason said. "I felt it had to be someone who knew where to look for the gun. I felt that probably the only time it could have been stolen was around the time the cleaning women came to the offices in the morning. I had Paul Drake look up the register of people coming to the office. I got a description of the one man who had been here. I ran down a few other clues and they pointed to Simley Beason. I asked him to come to the office, charged him with the theft and had the charwoman come in here to identify him. She identified him. He broke down and confessed."

"All right, tell us about the gun," Burger said wearily. "Something seems to tell me this is all part of the same old run-around, only now you've given it a new twist."

"So," Mason said, "Simley Beason telephoned his secretary, Rosalie Blackburn, told her to go to his desk, get the key to his locker, open the locker, take the golf clubs out of his bag, turn the golf bag upside down, take the package that was in the bottom of the golf bag and bring it up here."

"Go ahead," Burger said. "This is your show. Keep talking."

"When the secretary came here," Mason said, "she gave the package to Beason, but pointed out that the package was not sealed when she found it. The paper had been cut with a very sharp knife or perhaps a razor blade. Apparently the person doing that had unwrapped the paper, looked at the gun, then replaced the package in the bottom of the golf bag."

Burger's eyes narrowed.

"Now then," Mason said, "I'm giving you all the information that I have on the subject. As soon as I had the weapon again in my possession I put it in the desk drawer, being careful not to touch it with my hands and leave any fingerprints, and called Lieutenant Tragg."

"That's your story?" Tragg asked.

"That's it," Mason said.

Tragg again exchanged glances with Burger.

Burger's face darkened. "You can't get away with this, Perry," he said.

"I'm not getting away with anything. You wanted my story. I told it to you."

Burger said, "This is all very clever. When we try Adelle Hastings for murder and try to introduce this gun in evidence you're going to claim that we can't prove it was the same gun that was in Adelle's purse. You've told this cock-and-bull story with the idea that you'll force us to put this man, Beason, on the stand, then this secretary of his. Then you'll claim that the package was tampered with, you'll claim that anyone had a chance to substitute guns and that it can't be shown this was the gun that Adelle Hastings had in her purse."