Bill Hoffman, head of the Homicide Squad, was a big, patient man with slow, searching eyes, and a habit of turning things over and over in his mind before he reached a definite conclusion.
He sat in the living room on the downstairs floor of the Belter house and stared through his cigarette smoke at Perry Mason.
“The papers that we’ve found,” he said, “indicate that he was the real owner of Spicy Bits, the blackmailing sheet that’s been shaking them down during the last five or six years.”
Perry Mason spoke, slowly and cautiously, “I knew that, Sergeant.”
“How long have you known it?” asked Hoffman.
“Not very long.”
“How did you find out?”
“That’s something I can’t tell.”
“How did you happen to be here tonight before the police came?”
“You heard what Mrs. Belter said. That’s true. She called me. She was inclined to think that her husband might have lost his head, and shot the man who was calling on him. She didn’t know what had happened, and was afraid to go and find out.”
“Why was she afraid?” asked Hoffman.
Perry Mason shrugged his shoulders.
“You’ve seen the man,” he said, “and you know the type of a man it would take to run Spicy Bits. I would say, offhand, that he was rather hardboiled. He might not be a perfect gentleman or very chivalrous in dealing with womenfolk’s.”
Bill Hoffman turned the matter over in his mind.
“Well,” he said, “we can tell a lot more when we’ve traced that gun.”
“Can you trace it?” asked Mason.
“I think so. The numbers are on it.”
“Yes,” Mason said, “I saw them when they took down the numbers. A 32caliber Colt automatic, eh?”
“That’s the gun,” said Hoffman.
There was a period of silence. Hoffman smoked meditatively. Perry Mason sat perfectly still without so much as moving a muscle, the pose of a man who is either absolutely relaxed, or else is afraid to give way to the slightest motion for fear that it will betray him.
Once or twice Bill Hoffman raised his placid eyes and looked at Perry Mason. Finally Hoffman said, “There’s something funny about this whole thing, Mason. I don’t know just how to explain it.”
“Well,” said Mason, “it’s your business. I usually get in on the murder cases long after the police have finished. This is a new experience for me.”
Hoffman flashed him a glance.
“Yes,” he said, “it is rather unusual for an attorney to be on the ground before the police get there, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Mason, noncommittally, “I think I can agree with you upon that word ‘unusual.’”
Hoffman smoked awhile in silence.
“Located the nephew yet?” asked Mason.
“No,” said Hoffman. “We’ve covered most of the places where he usually hangs out. We crossed his trail earlier in the evening. He’d been out with some jane at a night club. We’ve located her all right. She said that he left her beforemidnight. About elevenfifteen she thinks it was.”
Suddenly there sounded the noise of a motor pounding up the drive. The rain had ceased, and the moon was breaking through the clouds.
Above the noise of the motor could be heard a steady thump… thump… thump… thump.
The car came to a stop, and a horn blared.
“Now what the devil?” said Bill Hoffman, and got slowly to his feet.
Perry Mason had his head cocked on one side, listening.
“Sounds like a flat,” he said.
Bill Hoffman moved toward the door, and Perry Mason followed along behind him.
Sergeant Hoffman opened the front door.
There were four or five police cars parked in the driveway. The car that had just driven up was on the outside of the circle of parked cars. It was a roadster with side curtains up. A vague form at the wheel was staring at the house. The white blur of his face could be seen through the side curtains of the car. He was holding one hand on the horn which kept up a steady, incessant racket.
Sergeant Hoffman stepped out into the light on the porch, and the noise of the horn ceased.
The door of the roadster opened, and a voice called in thick accents:
“Digley. I got… flat tire… can’t change… don’t dare bend over… don’t feel well. You come fixsh car… fixsh tire.”
Perry Mason remarked casually, “That probably will be the nephew, Carl Griffin. We’ll see what he has to say.”
Bill Hoffman grunted. “If I’m any judge at this distance, he won’t be able to say much.”
Together they moved toward the car.
The young man crawled out from behind the steering wheel, felt vaguely with a groping foot for the step of the roadster, and lurched forward. He would have fallen, had it not been for his hand which caught and held one of the supports of the top. He stood there, weaving uncertainly back and forth.
“Got flat tire,” he said. “Want Digley… you’re not Digley. There’s two of you… not either one of you Digley. Who the hell are you? What you want shish time of night? ‘Snot a nicesh time night for men to come pay call.”
Bill Hoffman moved forward.
“You’re drunk,” he said.
The man leered at him with owlish scrutiny.
“Course I’m drunk… wash schpose I shtayed out for? Course I’m drunk.”
Hoffman said patiently: “Are you Carl Griffin?”
“Coursh I’m Carl Griffin.”
“All right,” said Bill Hoffman. “You’d better snap out of it. Your uncle has been murdered.”
There was a moment of silence. The man who held to the top of the roadster shook his head two or three times, as though trying to shake away some mental fog which gripped him.
When he spoke, his voice was more crisp.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Your uncle,” said the Sergeant. “That is, I presume he’s your uncle, George C. Belter. He was murdered an hour or an hour and a half ago.”
The reek of whiskey enveloped the man. He was struggling to get his selfpossession. He took two or three deep breaths, and then said, “You’re drunk.”
Sergeant Hoffman smiled. “No,Griffin, we’re not drunk,” he said, patiently. “You’re the one that’s drunk. You’ve been out going places and doing things. You’d better come in the house and see if you can pull yourself together.”
“Did you say ‘murdered’?” asked the young man.
“That’s what I said—murdered,” repeated Sergeant Hoffman.
The young man started walking toward the house. He was holding his head very erect with his shoulders back.
“If he was murdered,” he said, “it was that damned woman that did it.”
“Who do you mean?” asked Sergeant Hoffman.
“That babyfaced bitch he married,” said the young man.
Hoffman took the young man’s arm and turned back to Perry Mason.
“Mason,” he said, “would you mind switching off the motor on that car and turning off the lights?”
Carl Griffin paused, and turned unsteadily back.
“Change tire, too,” he said, “right front tire—it’s been flat for miles and miles… better change it.”
Perry Mason switched off the motor and lights, slammed the door on the roadster, and walked rapidly to catch up with the pair ahead of him.
He was in time to open the front door for Bill Hoffman and the man on his arm.
Seen under the light in the hallway, Carl Griffin was a rather goodlooking young man with a face which was flushed with drink, marked with dissipation. His eyes were red and bleary, but there was a certain innate dignity about him, a stamp of breeding which made itself manifest in the manner in which he tried to adjust himself to the emergency.
Bill Hoffman faced him, studied him carefully.
“Do you suppose that you could sober up enough to talk with us,Griffin?” he asked.
Griffin nodded. “Just a minute… I’ll be all right.”
He pushed away from Sergeant Hoffman and staggered toward a lavatory which opened off the reception room on the lower floor.
Hoffman looked at Mason.
“He’s pretty drunk,” said Mason.
“Sure he’s drunk,” Hoffman replied, “but it isn’t like an amateur getting drunk. He’s used to it. He drove the car all the way up here with the roads wet, and with a tire flat.”
“Yes,” agreed Mason, “he could drive the car all right.”
“Apparently no love lost between him and Eva Belter,” Sergeant Hoffman pointed out.
“You mean what he said about her?” asked Mason.
“Sure,” said Hoffman. “What else would I mean?”
“He was drunk,” Mason said. “You wouldn’t suspect a woman on account of the thoughtless remark of a drunken man, would you?”
“Sure, he was drunk,” said Hoffman, “and he piloted the car up here, all right. Maybe he could think straight even if he was drunk.”
Perry Mason shrugged his shoulders.
“Have it your own way,” he said, carelessly.
From the bathroom came the sounds of violent retchings.
“I’ll bet you he sobers up,” remarked Sergeant Hoffman, watching Perry Mason with wary eyes, “and says the same thing about the woman when he’s sober.”
“I’ll bet you he’s drunk as a lord, no matter whether he seems to be sober or not,” snapped Mason. “Some of these fellows are pretty deceptive when it comes to carrying their booze. They get so they can act as sober as judges, but they haven’t very much of an idea what they’re doing or saying.”
Bill Hoffman looked at him with a suggestion of a twinkle in his eyes.
“Sort of discounting in advance what ever it may be that he’s going to say, eh, Mason?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Hoffman laughed.
“No,” he said, “you didn’t say it. Not in exactly those words.”
“How about getting him some black coffee?” asked Mason. “I think I can find the kitchen and put some coffee on.”
“The housekeeper should be out there,” Hoffman said. “I don’t want to offend you, Mason, but I really want to talk to this man alone, anyway. I don’t know exactly what your status in this case is. You seem to be a friend of the family and a lawyer both.”
“That’s all right,” Mason agreed readily enough. “I understand your position, Sergeant. I happen to be out here, and I’m sticking around.”
Hoffman nodded. “You’ll find the housekeeper in the kitchen, I think. Mrs. Veitch, her name is. We had her and her daughter upstairs questioning them. Go on out there and see if they can scare up some coffee. Get lots of black coffee. I think that the boys upstairs would like it as well as this chap,Griffin.”
“Okay,” Mason said. He went through the folding doors from the dining room, then pushed through a swinging door into a serving pantry, and from there into the kitchen.
The kitchen was enormous, well lit, and well equipped. Two women were seated at a table. They were in straightbacked chairs, and were sitting close to each other. They had been talking in low tones when Perry Mason stepped into the room, and they ceased their conversation abruptly and looked up.
One of them was a woman in the late forties, with hair that was shot with gray, deepset, lackluster, black eyes that seemed to have been pulled into her face by invisible strings that had worked the eyes so far back into the sockets it was hard to tell their expression. They hid from sight back in the shadowed hollows. She had a long face, a thin, firm mouth, and high cheek bones. She was dressed in black.
The other woman was very much younger, not over twentytwo or three. Her hair was jet black and glossy. Her eyes were a snapping black, and their brightness emphasized the dullness of the deepsunken eyes of the older woman. Her lips were full and very red. Her face had received careful attention with rouge and powder. The eyebrows were thin, black and arched, the eyelashes long.
“You’re Mrs. Veitch?” asked Perry Mason, addressing the older woman.
She nodded in tightlipped silence.
The girl at her side spoke in a rich, throaty voice.
“I’m Norma Veitch, her daughter. What is it you wanted? Mother’s all upset.”
“Yes, I know,” apologized Mason. “I wondered if we could get some coffee. Carl Griffin has just come home, and I think he’s going to need it. And there’s a bunch of men working on the case upstairs who will want some.”
Norma Veitch got to her feet. “Why, I guess so. It’s all right isn’t it, Mother?” she asked.
She glanced at the older woman, and the older woman nodded her head once more.
“I’ll get it, Mother,” said Norma Veitch.
“No,” said the older woman, speaking in a voice that was as dry as the rustling of corn husks. “I’ll get it. You don’t know where things are.”
She pushed back her chair and walked across the kitchen to a cupboard. She slid back a door and took down a huge coffee percolator and a can of coffee. Her face was absolutely expressionless, but she moved as though she were very tired.
She was flatchested and flathipped and walked with springless steps. Her entire manner was that of dejection.
The girl turned to Mason and flashed him a smile from her full red lips.
“You’re a detective?” she asked.
Mason shook his head. “No,” he said, “I’m the man that was here with Mrs. Belter. I’m the one that called the police.”
Norma Veitch said, “Oh, yes. I heard something about you.”
Mason turned to the mother.
“I can make the coffee all right, Mrs. Veitch, if you don’t feel able.”
“No,” she said in that same dry, expressionless voice. “I can make it all right.”
She poured coffee into the container, put water in the percolator, walked over to the gas stove, lit the gas, looked at the percolator for a moment, then walked with her peculiar, flatfooted gait back to the chair, sat down, folded her hands on her lap, and lowered her eyes so that she was staring at the top of the table. She continued to stare there in fixed intensity.
Norma Veitch looked up at Perry Mason. “My,” she said, “it was horrible. Wasn’t it?”
Mason nodded, remarked casually, “You didn’t hear the shot, I presume?”
The girl shook her head.
“No, I was sound asleep. In fact, I didn’t wake up until after the officers came. They got Mother up, and I guess they didn’t know that I was sleeping in the adjoining room. They wanted to look through Mother’s room while she was upstairs, I guess. Anyway, the first thing I knew, I woke up and there was a man standing by the bed looking down at me.”
She lowered her eyes and tittered slightly.
One gathered that she had not found the experience unpleasant.
“What happened?” asked Mason.
“They acted as though they thought they had discovered the nigger in the woodpile,” she said. “They made me put on clothes and wouldn’t even let me out of their sight while I was dressing. They took me upstairs, and gave me what they call a third degree, I guess.”
“What did you tell them?” asked Mason.
“Told them the truth,” she said, “that I went to bed and went to sleep, and woke up to find somebody staring down at me.” She seemed rather pleased as she added, “They didn’t believe me.”
Her mother sat at the table, hands folded on her lap, eyes staring steadily in fixed intensity at the center of the table.
“And you didn’t hear anything, or see anything?” asked Perry Mason.
“Not a thing.”
“Have you any ideas about it?”
She shook her head.
“None that would bear repeating.”
He glanced at her sharply.
“Have you any that wouldn’t bear repeating?” he inquired.
She nodded her head.
“Of course, I’ve only been around here a week or so, but in that time…”
“Norma!” said her mother, in a voice which had suddenly lost its dry huskiness and cracked like the lash of a whip.
The girl lapsed into abrupt silence.
Perry Mason glanced at the older woman. She had not so much as raised her eyes from the table when she spoke.
“Did you hear anything, Mrs. Veitch?” he asked.
“I am a servant. I hear nothing, and I see nothing.”
“Rather commendable for one who is a servant, as far as minor matters are concerned,” he observed, “but I think you will find the law has ideas of its own upon the matter, and that you will be required to see and to hear.”
“No,” she said, without so much as moving a muscle of her head. “I saw nothing.”
“And heard nothing?”
“And heard nothing.”
Perry Mason scowled. Somehow he sensed that the woman was concealing something.
“Did you answer those questions in just that way when you were questioned upstairs?” he asked.
“I think,” she said, “the coffee is about ready to start percolating. You can turn the fire down as soon as it does, so that it doesn’t boil over.”
Mason turned to the coffee. The percolator was specially designed to heat a maximum of water in a small amount of time, and the fire under it was a blue flame of terrific heat. Steam was commencing to rise from the water.
“I’ll watch the coffee,” he said, “but I am interested to know whether or not you answered the questions in exactly that way when you were upstairs.”
“What way?” she countered.
“The way you answered them here.”
“I told them the same thing,” she said, “that I saw nothing and heard nothing.”
Norma Veitch giggled. “That’s her story,” she said, “and she sticks to it.”
The mother snapped, “Norma!”
Mason stared at them both, his thoughtful face apparently absolutely placid. Only his eyes were hard and calculating.
“You know,” he said, “I’m a lawyer. If you have anything to confide in me, now would make an excellent time.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Veitch, tonelessly.
“How’s that?” asked Perry Mason.
“I merely agreed,” she said, “that this would be an excellent time.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Well?” said Mason.
“But I have nothing to confide,” she said, her eyes still fixed on the table top.
At that moment, the percolator commenced to bubble. Mason turned down the fire.
“I’ll get some cups and saucers,” said Norma, jumping to her feet.
Mrs. Veitch said, “Sit down, Norma. I’ll do it.” She pushed back her chair, walked to one of the cupboards, and took down some cups and saucers. “They’ll drink out of these.”
“Mother,” said Norma, “those are the cups and saucers that are kept for the chauffeurs and servants.”
“These are police officers,” said Mrs. Veitch. “They’re just the same.”
“No, they aren’t, Mother,” said Norma.
“I’m doing this,” said Mrs. Veitch. “You know what the master would have said had he been alive. He’d have given them nothing.”
Norma Veitch said, “Well, he isn’t alive. Mrs. Belter is going to be the one that runs things.”
Mrs. Veitch turned and looked steadily at her daughter from those deepset, lackluster eyes.
“Don’t be too sure that she is,” she said.
Perry Mason poured some of the coffee into the cups, and then poured it back through the coffee container in the percolator. When he had poured it through the second time, it was black and steaming.
“Get me a tray,” he said, “and I’ll take in a couple of cups to Sergeant Hoffman and Carl Griffin. You can serve coffee to the others upstairs.”
Wordlessly, she secured him a tray. Perry Mason poured three cups of coffee, picked up the tray, and walked into the dining room, through it into the sitting room.
Sergeant Hoffman was standing, his shoulders thrown back, his head thrust forward, feet wide apart.
Plumped down in one of the chairs, his face flushed and his eyes very red, was Carl Griffin.
Sergeant Hoffman was talking as Perry Mason brought in the coffee.
“That wasn’t the way you talked about her when you first came in,” Sergeant Hoffman said.
“I was drunk then,” saidGriffin.
Hoffman stared at him. “Many times a person tells the truth when he’s drunk and conceals his feelings when he’s sober,” he remarked.
Carl Griffin raised his eyebrows in an expression of wellbred surprise.
“Indeed?” he observed. “I’d never noticed it.”
Sergeant Hoffman heard Mason behind him, whirled, and grinned as he saw the steaming cups of coffee.
“Okay, Mason,” he said, “that’s going to come in pretty handy. Drink one of these,Griffin, and you’ll feel better.”
Griffin nodded. “It looks good, but I feel all right now.”
Mason handed him a cup of coffee.
“Do you know anything about a will?” asked Sergeant Hoffman, abruptly.
“I’d rather not answer that, if you don’t mind, Sergeant,”Griffin answered.
Hoffman took himself a cup of coffee. “It happens that I do mind,” he commented. “I want you to answer that question.”
“Yes, there’s a will,”Griffin admitted.
“Where is it?” asked Hoffman.
“I don’t know.”
“How do you know there is one?”
“He showed it to me.”
“Does the property all go to his wife?”
Griffin shook his head.
“I don’t think anything goes to her,” he said, “except the sum of five thousand dollars.”
Sergeant Hoffman raised his eyebrows, and whistled.
“That,” he said, “puts a different aspect on it.”
“Different aspect on what?” askedGriffin.
“On the whole situation,” said Hoffman. “She was kept here practically dependent on him, and upon his continuing to live. The minute he died, she was put out with virtually nothing.”
Griffin volunteered a statement by way of explanation. “I don’t think they were very congenial.”
Sergeant Hoffman said, musingly, “That’s not the point. Usually in any of these cases, we have to look for a motive.”
Mason grinned at Sergeant Hoffman.
“Are you insinuating that Mrs. Belter fired the shot which killed her husband?” he asked, as though the entire idea were humorous.
“I was making a routine investigation, Mason, in order to find out who might have killed him. In such cases, we always look for a motive. We try to find out any one who would have benefited by his death.”
“In that case,”Griffin remarked, soberly, “I presume that I’ll come under suspicion.”
“How do you mean?” asked Hoffman.
“Under the terms of the will,” saidGriffin slowly, “I take virtually all of the estate. I don’t know as it’s any particular secret. I think that Uncle George had more affection for me than he did for any one else in the world. That is, he had as much affection for me as he could have, considering his disposition. I doubt if he was capable of having affection for any one.”
“How did you feel toward him?” asked Hoffman.
“I respected his mind,” Carl Griffin replied, choosing his words carefully, “and I think I appreciated something of his disposition. He lived a life that was very much apart, because he had a mind which was very impatient of all subterfuges and hypocrisies.”
“Why did that condemn him to live apart?” asked Sergeant Hoffman.
Griffin made a slight motion with his shoulders.
“If you had a mind like that,” he said, “you wouldn’t need to ask the question. The man had wonderful intellectual capacity. He had the ability to see through people and to penetrate sham and hypocrisy. He was the type of a man who never made any friends. He was so thoroughly selfreliant that he didn’t have to lean on any one, and, therefore, he hadn’t any ground for establishing friendships. His sole inclination was to fight. He fought the world and everyone in it.”
“Evidently he didn’t fight you,” said Sergeant Hoffman.
“No,” admittedGriffin, “he didn’t fight me, because he knew that I didn’t give a damn about him or his money. I didn’t lick his boots, and, on the other hand, I didn’t doublecross him. I told him what I thought, and I shot fair with him.”
Sergeant Hoffman narrowed his eyes. “Who did doublecross him?” he asked.
“Why, what do you mean?”
“You said you didn’t doublecross him, so he liked you.”
“That’s right.”
“And there was an emphasis on the pronoun you used.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“How about his wife? Didn’t he like her?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t discuss his wife with me.”
“Did she doublecross him?” demanded Sergeant Hoffman.
“How should I know that?”
Sergeant Hoffman stared at the young man. “You sure know how to keep things to yourself,” he mused, “but if you won’t talk, you won’t, so that’s all there is to it.”
“But I’ll talk, Sergeant,” protestedGriffin, “I’ll tell you everything I can.”
Sergeant Hoffman sighed and said, “Can you tell me exactly where you were when the murder was committed?”
A flush came overGriffin’s face.
“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” he said, “but I can’t.”
“Why?” asked Sergeant Hoffman.
“Because,” saidGriffin, “in the first place, I don’t know when the murder was committed, and in the second place, I wouldn’t know where I was. I’m afraid I’d been making quite an evening of it. I was out with a young woman earlier in the evening, and after I left her I went to a few speakeasies on my own. When I started home, I had that damned flat tire and I knew I was too drunk to change it. I couldn’t find a garage that was open, and it was raining, so I just fought the car along over the road. It must have taken me hours to get here.”
“The tire was pretty well chewed to pieces,” remarked Sergeant Hoffman. “And, by the way, did any one else know of your uncle’s will? Had any one else seen it?”
“Oh, yes,”Griffin answered, “my lawyer saw it.”
“Oh,” said Sergeant Hoffman, “so you had a lawyer, too, did you?”
“Of course I had a lawyer. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Who is he?” asked Hoffman.
“Arthur Atwood. He’s got offices in theMutualBuilding.”
Sergeant Hoffman turned to Mason. “I don’t know him. Do you know him, Mason?”
“Yes,” Mason said, “I’ve met him once or twice. He’s a baldheaded chap, who used to do some personal injury work. They say he always settles his cases out of court and always gets a good settlement.”
“How did you happen to see the will in the presence of your lawyer?” pressed Sergeant Hoffman. “It’s not usual for a man to call in the beneficiary under his will, together with his lawyer, in order to show them how the will is made, is it?”
Griffin pressed his lips together. “That’s something that you’ll have to ask my attorney about. I simply can’t go into it. It’s rather a complicated matter and one that I would prefer not to discuss.”
Sergeant Hoffman snapped. “All right, let’s forget about that stuff. Now go ahead and tell me what it was.”
“What do you mean?” askedGriffin.
Bill Hoffman turned around so that he was squarely facing the young man, and looked down at him. His jaw was thrust slightly forward, and his patient eyes were suddenly hard.
“I mean just this,Griffin,” he said, slowly and ominously, “you can’t pull that stuff. You’re trying to protect somebody, or trying to be a gentleman, or something of the sort. It won’t go. You either tell me what you know here and now, or else you go to jail as a material witness.”
Griffin’s face flushed. “I say,” he protested, “isn’t that rather steep?”
“I don’t give a damn how steep it is,” Hoffman said. “This is a murder case, and you’re sitting here trying to play button, button, who’s got the button with me. Now come on, and kick through. What was said at that time, and how did it happen that the will was exhibited to you and to your lawyer?”
Griffin spoke reluctantly. “You understand that I’m telling you this under protest?”
“Sure,” said Hoffman, “go ahead and tell me. What is it?”
“Well,”Griffin said slowly and with evident reluctance, “I’ve intimated that Uncle George and his wife weren’t on the best of terms. Uncle George had an idea that perhaps she was going to bring a suit against him for divorce in the event she could get the sort of evidence she wanted. Uncle George and I had some business dealings together, you know, and one time when Atwood and myself were discussing a business matter with him, he suddenly brought this other thing up. It was embarrassing to me, and I didn’t want to go ahead and discuss it, but Atwood looked at it just the way any lawyer would.”
Carl Griffin turned to Perry Mason. “I think you understand how that is, sir. I understand you’re an attorney.”
Bill Hoffman kept his eyes onGriffin’s face. “Never mind him. Go on. What happened?”
“Well,” said Griffin, “Uncle George made that single crack about him and his wife not being on the best of terms, and he held out a paper which he had in his hands, and which seemed to be all in his handwriting, and asked Mr. Atwood as a lawyer, if a will made entirely in the handwriting of the person who wrote it, was good without witnesses, or whether it needed to be witnessed. He said that he’d made his will, and that he thought there might be a contest because he wasn’t leaving much of his property to his wife. In fact, I believe he mentioned the sum of five thousand dollars, and he said that the bulk of the estate was to go to me.”
“You didn’t read the will?” asked Sergeant Hoffman.
“Well, not exactly. No, not in the way that you’d pick it up and look it through, word for word. I glanced at it, and saw that it was in his handwriting, and heard what he had to say about it. Atwood, I think, read it more carefully.”
“All right,” said Hoffman, “go ahead. Then what?”
“That was all,” saidGriffin.
“No, it wasn’t,” Hoffman insisted. “What else?”
Griffin shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, well,” he said, “he went on to say something else, the way a man will sometimes. I didn’t pay any attention to it.”
“Never mind that line of hooey,” pressed Hoffman. “What was it he said?”
“He said,” blurtedGriffin, his face coloring, “that he wanted it fixed so that if anything happened to him, his wife wouldn’t profit by it. He said that he wouldn’t put it past her to get his fortune by expediting his end, in the event she found she couldn’t get a good slice of it through divorce proceedings. Now you know everything I know. And I don’t think it’s any of your damned business. I’m telling you this under protest, and I don’t like your attitude.”
“Never mind the side comments,” Hoffman said. “I presume that accounts for your comment when you were drunk, and right after you had first heard about the murder. To the effect that…”
Griffin interrupted, holding up his hand.
“Please, Sergeant,” he said, “don’t bring that up. If I said it, I don’t remember it, and I certainly didn’t mean it.”
Perry Mason said, “Maybe you didn’t mean it, but you certainly managed…”
Sergeant Hoffman whirled on him.
“That’ll do from you, Mason!” he said. “I’m running this. You’re here as an audience, and you can keep quiet, or get out!”
“You’re not frightening me a damned bit, Sergeant,” Mason said. “I’m here in the house of Mrs. Eva Belter, as attorney for Mrs. Eva Belter, and I hear a man making statements which are bound to be damaging to her reputation, if not otherwise. I am going to see that those statements are substantiated or withdrawn.”
The look of patience had entirely vanished from Hoffman’s eyes. He stared at Mason moodily.
“Well,” he said, “stick up for your rights if you want to. And I don’t know but what you’ve got some explaining to do at that. It’s a damn funny thing that the police come here and find a murder, with you and a woman sitting here talking things over. And it’s a damn funny thing, that when a woman discovers her husband has been murdered, she goes and rings up her attorney, before she does anything else.”
Mason remarked hotly, “That’s not a fair statement, and you know it. I’m a friend of hers.”
“So it would seem,” said Sergeant Hoffman, dryly.
Mason planted his feet wide apart and squared his shoulders. “Now, let’s get this straight,” he said. “I’m representing Eva Belter. There’s no reason on God’s green earth for throwing any mud at her. George Belter wasn’t worth a damned thing to her dead. He was, to this guy. This guy comes drifting in with an alibi that won’t stand up and starts taking cracks at my client.”
Griffin protested hotly.
Mason kept staring at Sergeant Hoffman. “By God, you can’t convict a woman with a lot of loose talk. It takes a jury to do that. And a jury can’t convict her until she’s proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The big sergeant looked at Perry Mason searchingly.
“And you’re looking for a reasonable doubt, Mason?”
Mason pointed his finger at Carl Griffin.
“Just so you won’t shoot off your face too much, young fellow,” he said, “if my client ever goes before a jury, don’t think I’m dumb enough to overlook the advantage I can get from dragging you and this will into the case.”
“You mean you think he’s guilty of this murder?” asked Sergeant Hoffman, coaxingly.
“I’m not a detective,” said Mason. “I’m a lawyer. I know that the jury can’t convict anybody as long as they’ve got a reasonable doubt. And if you start framing anything on my client, there sits my reasonable doubt right in that chair!”
Hoffman nodded.
“About what I expected,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let you sit in on this thing in the first place. Now you can get out!”
“I’m going,” Mason told him.