Perry Mason sat at his desk in the office, looking across at Harry Nevers.
Nevers, with his hair trimmed, his face cleanshaven, wearing a newly pressed suit, twisted his legs up over the arm of the leather chair, and let his eyes study Perry Mason in bored appraisal.
"Sure I'll do you a favor," he said, "if it's anything I can do. The office is friendly toward you. You gave us a nice break on Frances Celane's surrender."
"All right," said Perry Mason, his eyes hard and watchful. "I want you to bear down heavy on the fact that the District Attorney has conducted secret tests to determine whether Don Graves could be telling the truth."
Nevers nodded and yawned.
"I suppose you mean that you want to have an intimation between the lines, that the D.A. wouldn't have had those tests made unless he'd had a little doubt in his own mind about the testimony."
Perry Mason nodded.
"Well," said Harry Nevers, in that expressionless monotone which was so characteristic of him, "that's already been done. I gave you that much of a break in advance."
"All right," said Mason. "Now here's something else. I want you to emphasize the events that happened just before court adjourned; the fact that the District Attorney refused to make a test under identical circumstances."
Nevers inclined his head in a gesture of assent.
"All right," he said, "what's back of it?"
"Back of what?" asked the attorney.
"Back of this test business."
"You can see for yourself," said Mason. "The District Attorney conducted tests. That shows he had some doubt of the ability of the witness to see the occupants of that room, as he claims he did. Furthermore, he has now refused to conduct a test, or permit a test to be conducted under exactly identical circumstances."
"Baloney," said the reporter. "That's a good line to hand to the jury, but I'm asking you for the lowdown."
"There isn't any lowdown," Mason told him.
"The hell there ain't," said Nevers. "Don't think I'm going to pull chestnuts out of the fire for you. You've given me a break in this case, and I'm willing to give you a break. But don't think I'm going to run around playing cat's paw for you, and get my fingers burnt unless I know whether the chestnut is worthwhile reaching for."
Mason shook his head.
"You've got me wrong, Harry," he said. "I simply want to have a test arranged under exactly identical circumstances."
"Well," said Nevers, "we'll talk that over for a while. What do you mean by exactly identical circumstances?"
"Well," said Perry Mason, "here's the way I want the test arranged. I want it so that I'm riding in the front seat of the automobile with Judge Purley. I'll be in the position that Arthur Crinston occupied. I'm perfectly willing to allow Drumm, the Deputy District Attorney, to sit in the back seat with Don Graves."
Harry Nevers stared at him with eyes that showed a glint of surprise.
"Have you gone crazy?" he asked.
"No," said Perry Mason shortly.
"Why you poor damned innocent babe in the woods!" said Nevers. "Don't let Claude Drumm fool you with any of that bushwa about being fair. He's one of the crookedest campaigners in the game. He's the one that ditched the notes that contained the first statement Don Graves made to the police—the one in which he said he recognized Devoe as the murderer, and didn't say anything about there being some other person in the room."
"That's all right," said Mason. "What if he did?"
"Why, simply this: He'll have things arranged so that Don Graves could be blindfolded and still make a one hundred percent identification. If you let him sit within nudging distance of Don Graves or where he can whisper or signal to him, you're just a plain fool."
Perry Mason shook his head and smiled.
"All right, then," said Nevers, "tell me what's up or you don't get a bit of cooperation out of us."
"There are times," said Perry Mason, "when a person has to use a little strategy—for instance when one is stalking a flock of geese it's always advisable to get behind a horse to walk up on the geese."
"What does that mean?" Nevers inquired.
"It means that geese are wild things, and they take flight whenever they see something they can't understand, or something that looks like a hunter," said Perry Mason. "But they're accustomed to the sight of a horse and when they see a horse walking around them, they don't pay any attention to it."
"So you're walking behind a horse?" asked Harry Nevers.
Perry Mason nodded his head.
Nevers slid his feet off the arm of the chair, stood up, and looked steadily at Perry Mason.
"Look here," he said, "you've got a reputation among lawyers of being a fast worker, and a twofisted campaigner. You've got the reputation of jockeying a case around so that you get in a position to give one knockout punch and then concentrate on that one punch. You don't go around wasting your energy in a lot of little taps that don't mean anything. Now I want to know what the knockout punch is in this case."
"I'm not certain yet," Perry Mason told him. "There may not be any."
"The hell there ain't," said Nevers. "Look at the way you've tried this case. You have sat back and let the prosecution put in every damned bit of evidence they wanted. You haven't crossexamined the witnesses so as to bring out anything that's to the advantage of either of the defendants."
"What do you mean by that?" inquired Perry Mason in low, ominous tones.
"Keep your shirt on," Nevers drawled tonelessly. "You aren't fooling me any with that stuff. You know as well as I do that Don Graves made a statement to the police the night of the murder, in which he either said, or at least intimated, that the person who struck the blow was Devoe, the chauffeur. He said there wasn't a woman in the room at the time the blow was struck, or at least he failed to say he saw a woman in the room. You've gone ahead and let him testify in this case, and haven't brought that out, or even intimated that he ever made a contradictory statement."
"It wouldn't do any good if I did," Perry Mason said. "The notes of that statement have been destroyed, and Graves would swear, either that he never made such a statement, or that Frances Celane asked him to give her a break, and he tried to leave her out of it."
"Baloney," said Nevers.
Perry Mason slid open a drawer in his desk and took out a flask of whisky.
"I'll tell you this much, Harry," he said. "If you'll play ball with me, you won't be sorry."
"Meaning by that?" asked Nevers.
"Meaning by that you can stick around on this test that's made and save a big slice of the front page for a blowoff."
Harry Nevers pushed back the glass which Mason had handed him with the bottle, and tilted the bottle to his lips. He took half a dozen swallows, then handed the bottle back to the attorney.
"When's this blowoff going to come?" he asked. "Right after the test?"
"I don't think so," said Perry Mason. "I think I'll have to do a little manipulation."
The reporter spoke as though he might have been thinking out loud.
"We can force the D.A. into making that test," he said. "It's a test that is bound to come out all right. But you've got something up your sleeve. You're trying this murder case with no more apparent fight about you than as though you were covering a coroner's inquest. You're going through it with a hop, skip and jump, and letting the prosecution get in all the damaging evidence they want. Everybody in town is talking about what a poor defense you're putting up."
"Yes?" asked Mason, raising his eyebrows.
"Oh forget it!" said Nevers, with a trace of feeling in his voice. "You know damned well they are. A kid out of law school would have tried this case better than you're trying it. Everybody is commenting on it. The town is divided into two camps—those that think you're shrewd as the devil, and have something up your sleeve, and those that think you've just been lucky on your other cases, and haven't got anything on the ball. Naturally, it's an important case. A woman who's got as many millions as Frances Celane at stake; a secret marriage; a sex angle, and all that sort of stuff makes front page news. It's the opportunity of your life to drag this case along, fighting every inch of the way, keeping your name on the front page of the newspaper for two or three weeks. In place of that you're acting like a dub. For a murder case, this thing is streaking through the court like a greased pig going between a farmer's legs."
Perry Mason corked the whisky bottle, and slid it back in the drawer of his desk.
Nevers looked at him searchingly.
"Going to say anything?" he asked.
"No," said Perry Mason.
Nevers grinned and wiped the back of his hand across his lips.
"Okay," said Nevers. "I've done my duty. I'll tell the city editor I tried my damnedest to get something out of you. Maybe I'll fake some piece of inside information that the readers can pick out between the lines."
Perry Mason took the reporter's arm and escorted him to the door of the outer office.
"Listen, Harry," he said, "if you fake anything, be sure you fake it right."
Perry Mason paused in the doorway, suddenly turned and faced the reporter.
"All right," he said, "I'll give you a bit of inside information. Rob Gleason is intending to make a complete confession and take the blame for the crime, exonerating Frances Celane."
Nevers stared at him.
"You can't give me that for publication," he said.
"Why not?" asked Perry Mason.
"It would be violating every professional confidence."
"That's all right," said Mason easily, "you're not using my name, that's all. Simply put it down as coming from a source that is close to the inside."
"My God!" said Nevers. "That would be the worst kind of libel if we couldn't back it up!"
"You can back it up," said Mason. "If anybody calls you on it, you can disclose the source of your information."
"Meaning that it came from you?"
"Meaning that it came from me," Mason told him.
Nevers took a deep breath.
"Listen, Perry," he said, "I've seen 'em come, and I've seen 'em go. I've been in on all kinds of cases, interviewed all kinds of people. I've seen those that were foxy, and those that just thought they were foxy. I've seen those that were dumb, and didn't know it, and those that were dumb, and thought they were smart, but you've got the whole world cheated. This is the damnedest interview with a lawyer I ever had!"
Mason placed his right hand between the reporter's shoulder blades and gently pushed him into the outer office.
"All right," he said, "I've given you a break. Give me one."
Frank Everly was standing in the outer office, his manner filled with impatience.
"Did you want to see me?" asked Perry Mason.
Everly nodded.
"Come in," Mason told him.
Everly walked into the inner office. Perry Mason stood in the door until Harry Nevers had gone out through the outer door, then Mason closed the door of the inner office, and turned to face Everly.
Everly coughed and averted his eyes.
"Didn't the case move rather expeditiously, Mr. Mason?" he asked.
Mason smiled at him with patient, tired eyes.
"In other words," he said, "you've been hearing some comments that I've stubbed my toe on the defense, and the prosecution is walking all over me, is that it?"
Everly turned red and said in a choked voice: "I didn't say anything like that, Mr. Mason."
"Did you ever hear the story," asked Perry Mason, in a kindly tone of voice, "of the man who brought suit against his neighbor, claiming to have been bitten by the neighbor's dog? The neighbor filed an answer in which he denied that his dog was vicious, denied that the dog had bitten the man, and denied that he ever had a dog."
"Yes," said Frank Everly, "I've heard that yarn. It's a classic around law school."
"All right," said Perry Mason. "The defense in that case became humorous because it took in too much territory. Now, when you've got a doubtful case, it's all right to try and have two strings to your bow. But remember that when you have two strings on a bow, while increasing the factor of safety, you lose the efficiency of the weapon. A bow that has two strings won't break a string, but it won't shoot an arrow one quarter of the distance that it would if it only had one string to it."
"You mean you're sacrificing everything in this case to concentrate on some one point?" asked the law clerk.
"Yes," said Perry Mason, "the innocence of Frances Celane and Rob Gleason is virtually shown by the evidence as it exists at the present time. The guilt of the defendants simply cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. But I want to do more than raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. I want to make a complete solution of the case."
Frank Everly stared at Perry Mason with wide, incredulous eyes.
"My heavens!" he said. "I thought that everything that went in today clinched the guilt of Frances Celane and Rob Gleason. I thought that unless we could break down the stories of some of those witnesses, we could just as well figure on a verdict of first degree murder."
Mason shook his head wearily.
"No," he said, "the big point I wanted in the case has already gone in. What I'm trying to do now is to crash that point home to the jury in such a dramatic manner they'll never forget it. And remember this—I've got Claude Drumm so badly rattled the way that case is going that he's on the verge of panic right now. He figures I must have an ace up my sleeve somewhere, or I wouldn't be giving him all the breaks."
"The jury," suggested Frank Everly, "looked rather unsympathetic."
"Of course they looked unsympathetic," said Perry Mason. "And they'll probably look more unsympathetic. You notice what Claude Drumm is doing. He's putting in the corpus delicti with just a smattering of testimony. Just before he gets ready to rest his case, he'll start introducing photographs of the dead body slumped over the desk, of the bloody blotter, of the insurance policy, spattered with the life blood of the dead man, and all of that stuff. Then, he'll throw the case into our laps, and leave us to face a jury that's hardened its heart to bring in a death penalty verdict."
"What I don't see," said Everly, "is how you're going to stop him."
"I'm not going to try to stop him," smiled Perry Mason, "I'm going to head him off."
Della Street walked into the room.
"Mr. Drake is out there," she said, "and says it's important."
Perry Mason smiled at her.
"He'll have to wait just a minute," he said, "I'm explaining something to Frank Everly."
Della Street looked at Perry Mason with eyes that were warm with tenderness.
"I can remember," she said softly, "when I made you explain something to me. After that, I've had enough faith in you so I don't need any explanations."
Perry Mason watched her with speculative eyes.
"You've read the papers?" he asked.
"The afternoon papers, yes."
"And you know how the trial is going?"
"Yes."
"You gathered that I was putting up a pretty weak defense?"
She stiffened slightly, and looked accusingly at Frank Everly.
"Who said that?" she asked.
"It's intimated in the newspapers," said Perry Mason.
"Well," said Della Street, "I just made a bet of half of my month's salary, with Paul Drake, that you were going to get both defendants acquitted. That shows how much faith I've got in you."
"Then," said Perry Mason, "Drake must have some bad news. You two get out of here and let me talk with him. You know he's doing some work for me on this case. He's probably got some inside information. It wasn't very sporting of him to bet on his inside information."
"That's all right," Della Street said. "He was square about it. He told me he had some inside information."
"Did he tell you what it was?"
"No, he just said he had it, and I told him I had some too."
"What did you have?" asked Perry Mason, staring speculatively at her.
"Faith in you," she said.
Mason waved his hand.
"All right," he said, "you folks get out and let me talk with Drake. We'll see what he's got to say."
Drake came into the inner office, sat down, grinned, and rolled a cigarette.
"Well," he said, "I've got the lowdown for you."
"All right," Perry Mason said, "what is it?"
"The rough shadow did it," said Drake.
"Never mind the methods," said Mason. "I want the facts."
"Well," said Drake, "the story goes like this. This Mrs. Mayfield is a hardboiled baby."
"I knew she was," said Mason. "She tried to hold me up a couple of times."
"Yes, I got all the lowdown on that, too," said Drake. "The only trouble is, Perry, that it looks like hell for your clients."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, in the first place, Mrs. Mayfield doesn't know quite as much as she tried to pretend she did. She made the mistake of going to bed at the wrong time. She went to bed just about fifteen or twenty minutes before the murder was committed. But she'd spent the evening snooping around.
"It all starts in with the fact that she found out Gleason and Frances Celane were married. She started in trying to capitalize on that knowledge. She took quite a bit of money from Frances Celane; I don't know how much, around ten thousand dollars, I think. And then, in some way, Edward Norton got wise that Frances Celane was paying blackmail. He got her in and tried to make her tell him whom she was paying money to and why. Naturally, she didn't dare to let him know. But Norton was a pretty obstinate individual, and, in order to find out, he shut off the girl's allowance. That put her in the position of having no money with which to pay any blackmail.
"On the other hand, Mrs. Mayfield said that she could capitalize on the information elsewhere, and if Frances Celane wouldn't give her money, she was going to sell the information to some of the charitable institutions who would benefit by the knowledge.
"Of course, this was all bluff, but Frances Celane didn't know it. The whole situation came to a head on the night of the murder. Frances Celane had a stormy interview with Norton, and they quarreled bitterly. Norton said that before he went to bed that night he was going to execute a written document terminating the trust and giving to Frances Celane the annuity provided by the terms of the trust and letting the balance go to charity.
"Whether that was a bluff on his part or not I don't know. Anyhow, that's what he said. Then Mrs. Mayfield went to bed. Next morning Frances Celane had money, lots of it. She gave Mrs. Mayfield twentyeight thousand dollars to keep quiet. Mrs. Mayfield promised she would.
"Rob Gleason was there in the house that night, and participated in at least a part of the interview with Norton. Norton was furious, and accused the girl of all sorts of things. She got mad and used language that must have raised a blister on his ears.
"Afterwards, Gleason went down to the girl's room. That was after Crinston came, and before the murder. Along about that time Mrs. Mayfield went to bed. She doesn't know exactly what happened, except that she's certain Frances Celane didn't go out in the Buick automobile. Therefore, she knows that the alibi Frances Celane was trying to make was false.
"She went to you and tried to shake you down for money to keep Frances Celane out of it. You turned her down hard, so she started concentrating on the girl, and actually collected from her. Then she found out that the money she'd taken from Frances Celane was in thousand dollar bills that were numbered consecutively, and knew that these bills would be traced in the event that she tried to change them for smaller bills. So she has these bills hidden and has tried to create the impression that Frances Celane gave you twentyeight thousand dollars to apply on a fee. She has told the District Attorney's office that that is what happened, and the District Attorney's office has been trying to locate the twentyeight thousand dollars. They've made examinations at your banks, and have even gone so far as to search the office. They have now come to the conclusion that you must be carrying the twentyeight thousand dollars on your person.
"The District Attorney is intending to use her as a surprise witness. She's going to testify as to the falsity of the girl's claim that she was out in the Buick automobile, and also to the quarrel that took place.
"It's the theory of the prosecution that a bitter quarrel was interrupted by Arthur Crinston; that the two people hatched out this murder plot and waited until Crinston had left to carry it into execution; that, as soon as Crinston drove away, they dashed up to the office and killed Mr. Norton, then planted the evidence in Pete Devoe's room in order to make it appear Devoe was the guilty party, in the event the officers didn't fall for the jimmied window and the footprints in the soft soil."
"How about Graves?" asked Perry Mason. "Have you done anything with him?"
"I've done lots with him. That girl has turned him inside out. He's going to be a bad man for you to handle, but he tells the girl that he's trying to protect Frances Celane, or that he was trying to protect her until the District Attorney brought pressure to bear on him."
"Look here," Mason said, "my theory of this case is that Norton gave Fran Celane that money before Crinston called. Now, Graves must have some information that'll support that theory."
"That," said Drake, "is the worst part of his testimony. He says he could hear every word of the conversation; that Norton took out his wallet and showed the girl forty thousand dollars, telling her he had originally gotten the money to give her, but that he wasn't going to give her anything except a small amount for current expenses. Then he took out two one thousand dollar bills and handed them to her.
"Don Graves has the idea the girl took the one thousand dollar bills, and that she and Gleason planted those one thousand dollar bills in the pocket of Devoe, the chauffeur, while Crinston was talking with Norton; that the girl and Gleason came back afterwards and killed Norton, taking the balance of the money from his wallet to use for the purpose of bribing the housekeeper to silence and paying you a sufficient cash retainer so you would interest yourself in the case. That's the theory Graves has.
"The District Attorney had things planned so that most of this would come out on crossexamination. He was going to slap you in the face with it. The fact that you've restricted your crossexamination so much has got Drumm worried. He's going to try and bring out all of this stuff on redirect examination now, asking permission to recall the witnesses."
Perry Mason stretched his long arms, stared at the detective, and laughed.
"Paul," he said, "there are times when caution is a vice."
"What do you mean by that?" Paul Drake asked.
"I mean," said Perry Mason, "that at times it is wise to stake everything on one dramatic blow, one crashing knockout punch. I've only got one string to my bow in this case. If it breaks, I'm finished. But if it doesn't break, I'm going to shoot an arrow right through the bull'seye of the whole case."
Drake said: "Well, Perry, if you can figure this thing out, you can do a lot more than I can. The more I see of it, the more mixed up and confused it looks."
Perry Mason started pacing the floor back and forth.
"The thing that I'm afraid of," he said, "is that I'm not keeping my real objective sufficiently concealed."
"How do you mean?" the detective inquired.
"I'm stalking a bunch of geese behind a horse," said Perry Mason, "and I'm afraid the horse may not be big enough to give me the concealment I want."
Paul Drake started for the door.
"Listen," he said, as he paused, with a hand on the knob of the door, "don't worry about that. I've seen a lot of murder cases in my time, and I've talked with a lot of lawyers who thought they had a point when they didn't have. If you think you're going to be able to save either one of your clients in this case, you've got more optimism than I have. I just bet half of Della Street 's salary for this month, that your clients were going to be convicted, and, after talking with you, I'm going out and try and get a bet for the other half. That shows how much confidence I've got."
As he closed the door, Perry Mason was standing in the center of the office, with his feet spread wide apart, his jaw thrust forward, heavy shoulders squared, staring in steady concentration at the closing door.