The Case of the Daring Divorcee (20 page)

"Now of course you heard her state that she decided to fight fire with fire, that she told her husband she had secured a divorce and sent him what purported to be a copy of the decree of divorce, but that decree wasn't certified.

"Now that of course is fraud, and whether she can capitalize on that fraud is a legal question, but there were very great pressures being brought to bear upon her and she did what she thought was best to protect her interests.

"The fact remains that legally she still remained Hastings' wife and Hastings' marriage to Adelle was therefore bigamous and void."

"No property settlement was ever executed between Minerva and Hastings?" Mason asked.

"Not to my knowledge. Hastings simply went to her apartment and said, 'Look here, Minerva, why do you want to get an attorney and fight this thing through the courts? When you get done the lawyer will get a big percentage of what you recover, and you may not get a dime. Virtually all the property is my sole and separate property and'-Well, he intimated that he'd had detectives on her trail and that there was some scandal in connection with her."

"You don't know what it was?"

"No, I don't."

"Don't you know, or aren't you saying?"

"Honestly, Mr. Mason, I don't know. Hastings never confided in me on that point and of course Minerva hasn't. It was a private conversation and I don't know what happened. I do know generally that there was something in Minerva's past that Hastings had found out about, something that she didn't want to have publicized-Well, I guess it was a standoff and they made this settlement."

"But no papers were ever drawn?"

"No papers were ever drawn. She agreed to dismiss the action down here, to go to Nevada and get a divorce and stipulate in the divorce decree that there had been a complete property settlement made and she waived all claims to alimony."

"And she deliberately planned to double-cross him at the time she was making that settlement," Mason said.

Banner shook his head. "I don't think so, Mason, I think she intended to live up to the terms of the agreement. I think it was made in good faith, but afterwards when she saw the manner in which Adelie was insinuating herself into Hastings' life-'Well, of course you can't understand the emotions of women; they do strange things.

"I'm not here to state that my client is completely blameless, but I am here to state that, in my opinion, her legal position is impregnable and I'm here to make a reasonable settlement."

"I take it you've checked the records to find that there was no final decree of divorce in Nevada?" Mason asked. "That's right, Mason. I've checked the records on that point. Naturally I did that before I agreed to represent Minerva.

"She filed the action, all right. She stayed there for six weeks, established a legal residence, filed the action-and then just never did bring the action to trial."

"But she did send a forged decree of divorce to her husband."

"No," Banner said.

"Now wait a minute," Mason said, "she admitted as much in the presence of witnesses there at the company offices."

"No, she didn't," Banner said. "There's a peculiar distinction, Mason. That decree of divorce wasn't forged."

"What do you mean?"

"She was smart enough not to sign the name of any judge to what purported to be a copy of the decree. She simply signed a purely fictitious name. It may be a fraud. I doubt if it is a forgery. There's no question but what she was guilty of fraud. As between her and Hastings, if Hastings had lived, there would have been an action for fraud. But as between her and her husband's mistress, the situation is different.

"My client isn't blameless but, on the other hand, she's still the wife of Hastings. That is, she's his widow."

The phone gave several short, sharp rings-Gertie's signal of an emergency.

The door from the outer office opened and Lt. Tragg entered the room.

"Well, well, Perry," he said. "I seem to have caught you busy. Hello, Banner, what are you two doing? Hatching up a plot of some kind?"

Mason said, "Tragg never does me the courtesy of having the receptionist announce him. He always walks right in this way."

"That's right," Tragg said, beaming. "The taxpayers don't like to have us cooling our heels in some attorney's office and if you know I'm coming you have a chance to prepare yourself a bit in advance."

"How much preparation do you think I need?" Mason asked.

"Not very much," Tragg said. "I came to advise you, Perry, that I'm here to pick up your client."

"On what charge?"

"Murder, of course," Tragg said cheerfully. "That gun turned out to be the fatal gun, and we found a fingerprint on it."

"You don't get fingerprints from guns," Mason said. "You, yourself admitted that, Tragg. Moreover the gun was handled by Beason and by his secretary after…"

Tragg was positively beaming. "This isn't a fingerprint powder would bring out, Perry," he interrupted, "it's very unusual. Quite a break, I'd say."

"Fingerprint of my client?" Mason asked.

"I don't know yet," Tragg said. "We haven't taken her prints. 'We're going to. I'm pretty sure, however, it's the print of a woman and-that's quite a break, you know, Perry. I don't believe there's one time out of twenty-five that we can get a fingerprint off a gun-I'll make it one in fifty-and, as I said, this isn't the usual type of fingerprint. The person who handled it had evidently been eating candy, or handling a type of nail polish or some liquid cement. While the print is dry and powder won't stick to it, it's nevertheless visible, and a very workable print."

"What if I don't surrender my client?" Mason asked.

"Then we'll get her," Tragg said, "and of course we'll have a point in our favor because we'll let it be known that we had told her not to leave town, that we'd get in touch with her through you if we wanted her. And now we've told you we want her."

Tragg settled himself comfortably in a chair, smiled at Banner and said, "How are you doing, Banner?"

"Very well," Banner said, grinning. "Very well indeed!"

Mason nodded to Della Street. "You win, Tragg," he said. "Get Adelle Hastings on the phone, Della, and tell her to come at once."

Chapter Twelve

Judge Quincy L. Fallon looked down over the crowded courtroom and said, "This is the time heretofore fixed for the preliminary hearing in the case of the People of the State of California versus Adelle Sterling Hastings. Are you ready?"

Morton Ellis, one of the trial deputies of the district attorney's office, said, "Ready for the People, Your Honor."

Mason stood up. "If the Court please, the defendant is ready."

"Very well," Judge Fallon said. "Now, I want to make a few comments before we start taking evidence in this case.

"The Court understands from the press that a legal battle is going to be waged for the control of the estate. Minerva Shelton Hastings claims under a will, and Adelle Sterling Hastings, the defendant in this case, claims as the surviving spouse. Both parties have filed petitions which will duly be heard in the probate court.

"Now, this Court doesn't intend to have this hearing in the criminal case develop into a squabble as to who is entitled to the estate or the management thereof. The sole question to be determined here is whether a crime has been committed and, if so, whether there is reasonable ground to believe the defendant is guilty of that crime. If she is, she will be bound over for trial in the superior court, and if she isn't, she will be released.

"The Court realizes that it may be necessary to show some of the facts connected with the claims to the estate for the purpose of showing motivation, and quite possibly bias of the witnesses. But the Court wants the evidence concerning control of the estate limited to that purpose. It will serve no particular purpose to try the probate matter here, or for counsel to go on a fishing expedition with the different witnesses in the hope that some statement will be made which can be used in the probate hearing.

"With that in mind I caution you, gentlemen, to limit your examination, and in particular your cross-examination, within the bounds delineated by the Court.

"You may proceed, gentlemen."

Morton Ellis, with crisp, businesslike efficiency, hurried through the opening stages of the trial.

A surveyor introduced a diagram of the premises, a floor plan of the upper and lower floors of the Hastings mansion. There were photographs of the exterior of the mansion. An autopsy surgeon testified that death was caused by two bullets from a.38-caliber revolver which had penetrated the brain; that the body had been found in bed; that death was instantaneous; that the man had evidently been killed while he was asleep; that the time of death had been sometime early in the morning of Monday, the fourth; that death could have been as late as eight o'clock in the morning of that day, or as early as one o'clock in the morning; that in his opinion the body had not been moved after death but had been found in exactly the position in which it had been lying when the shots were fired; the post-mortem lividity indicated as much.

Ellis said, "I will call Lieutenant Arthur Tragg as my next witness."

Tragg came forward, was sworn, took the witness stand and told of the discovery of the body and introduced photographs of the body lying in the bed, the room in which the body had been found; and then produced the fatal bullets, one of which had been removed from the mattress after having passed entirely through the head; the other had been found inside the skull.

"Are you acquainted with Perry Mason, the attorney for the defendant?" Ellis asked.

"I am."

"Have you had occasion to talk with him over the telephone from time to time?"

"I have."

"Are you familiar with the sound of his voice?"

"I am."

"I will ask you whether or not you had any conversation with Perry Mason on the morning of Tuesday, the fifth?"

"I did. Yes, sir."

"And what was that conversation?"

"Mr. Mason called me, he told me that someone had been in his office the day prior to the telephone call."

"Now, just a minute," Ellis said, "that would have been Monday, the fourth."

"That's right."

"And what else did Mr. Mason say?"

"He said that this caller had left a woman's handbag in the office, that the handbag contained a gun, that the gun had been fired twice. He said further that subsequently the bag had been identified as being the property of Adelle Sterling Hastings, the defendant in this case, and suggested that I might care to examine the weapon."

"And what did you do?"

"I asked one of the men on the homicide squad to put through a call to Garvin S. Hastings and get him on the phone. However, shortly after that a report came in that one of Hastings' employees had gone to the house to see why Hastings had not been answering the phone and had found the man's body in bed."

"So what did you do?"

"I went to Mr. Mason's office."

"And what did you find there?"

"I found the defendant there."

"Did you find the gun Mr. Mason had referred to?"

"Not then."

"Did you subsequently locate it?"

"Just a moment," Mason said. "I object to that question as calling for a conclusion of the witness."

"Why, he certainly can answer whether or not he eventually discovered the gun," Ellis said.

"No, he can't," Mason said, "because he has no way of knowing whether the gun he discovered was the same gun that I had referred to over the telephone, or the same gun that I had in my office."

"Oh, Your Honor," Ellis said, "this is simply quibbling. We can trace that gun from the woman's handbag to Mason's desk, from Mason's desk to the office of Garvin Hastings, where one of the employees, Simley Beason, had concealed it, and then we can trace it into the possession of Lieutenant Tragg."

"Then go ahead and trace it," Mason said, "but don't ask this witness if the gun that he eventually recovered was the same gun that was in my office drawer. That's a conclusion."