The Case of the Daring Decoy, page 20
part #54 of Perry Mason Series
“Yes.”
“And didn’t you tell me that you had answered the letter she had written and told her something to that effect?”
“I believe I did, yes.”
“And didn’t I tell you that that letter was in the mailbox at her apartment?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Oh yes, you do,” Mason said.
“The reason you didn’t go to the Elsinore police station to find out if your wife had been murdered until considerably later on the morning of the seventeenth was that you suddenly realized that this letter you had mailed your wife would direct suspicion to you. You had told your wife in that letter that you would kill her before you’d let her marry anyone else, didn’t you?”
The witness looked at Mason with sullen hostility, then slowly shook his head.
“No, I didn’t say anything like that.”
“And,” Mason said, “the minute I told you that letter was in the mailbox, you knew that that was a clue pointing toward you that you had forgotten, and that you had to go in and get that letter out of the mailbox before you asked the police to find out if your wife had been murdered.”
“That’s not true!”
Mason, frowning thoughtfully, turned to survey the courtroom, studying the faces of the spectators.
At that moment the door opened, and Paul Drake and Myrtle Lamar entered the courtroom.
Mason said, “If the Court please, I notice that Myrtle La- mar has just entered the courtroom. I would like to ask Miss Lamar to come forward and stand by me for a moment. And I would like to ask the witness to arise.”
“What’s the reason for all this?” Hamilton Burger asked.
“Myrtle Lamar,” Mason said, “as one of the elevator operators at the Redfern Hotel, has her own means of making an identification of persons who go up in the elevator. Kindly step forward, Miss Lamar.”
Mason moved over to the swinging gate which divided the bar from the courtroom and said, “Right this way, please.”
Myrtle Lamar moved through the gate.
“I object,” Hamilton Burger said.
“On what grounds?” Judge DeWitt asked.
“He can’t examine two witnesses at once,” Hamilton Burger said.
“He’s not trying to,” Judge DeWitt said. “He is, as I understand it, trying to make an identification.”
“If the Court please,” Mason said, “I feel that perhaps I do owe Court and counsel an explanation. It seems that Miss Lamar makes a point of studying the feet of the persons who go up and down in the elevators. I notice that this witness has a peculiar habit of turning his right foot in at a sharp angle. I also notice he is wearing a distinctive shoe, a high-laced shoe with a heavy box-toe cap. I believe these shoes are advertised by one of the well-known mail order houses as being ideal for service-station attendants in that they will not slip and are resistant to oil and gasoline.”
Mason turned back to the witness. “Stand up, please.”
Calvert sullenly got to his feet.
“Now, just a minute, just a minute,” Hamilton Burger said, pushing back from his chair and lumbering toward the witness. “I want to see this.”
Mason said to Calvert, “You’re holding your right foot so the toe is pointed straight ahead. Do you always stand that way?”
“Of course,” Calvert said.
Abruptly Myrtle Lamar started to laugh. “That’s not true,” she said in a loud, clear voice. “I’d never forget those shoes. When he stands relaxed, his right toe is pointed in. He’s deliberately holding it—”
“Order!” Judge DeWitt shouted. “You will not give any testimony at this time, Miss Lamar. You are being brought up here purely for the purpose of identification. You will now return to your seat in the courtroom. The witness will resume his seat in the witness chair.”
Hamilton Burger said, “Your Honor, I object. I move all of this statement be stricken as not being the statement of a witness, and—”
“The motion is granted!” Judge DeWitt snapped. “Mr. Mason can, of course, call Miss Lamar as his witness if he desires, but her statement will be stricken from the evidence.”
“Sit down,” Mason said to Calvert.
Mason stood for a moment, looking at the witness with searching eyes. Then he said in a tone that was not without sympathy, “You loved your wife, didn’t you, Calvert?”
Calvert nodded.
“You felt you couldn’t live without her. You wanted her to come back to you.”
The witness was silent.
“And,” Mason said, “you made up your mind that if you couldn’t have her, no one else was going to have her. You were willing to kill her and probably intended to kill yourself at the same time. Then you lost your nerve and didn’t go through with the suicide.”
The witness shifted his position uncomfortably. For a swift moment his lips twisted on a choking sob, then he regained control of himself.
Mason said, “If the Court please, I feel that the circumstances are highly unusual. I would like to have a ten-minute recess so that I can interview certain witnesses.”
“I object to any continuance at this time,” Hamilton Burger said in sputtering protest.
“Is it absolutely necessary to have a recess at this time in order to interview these witnesses, Mr. Mason?” Judge DeWitt asked.
“It is, Your Honor. Mrs. Farrell was having detectives shadow Rose Calvert’s apartment. I can’t say for certain what time these detectives went off duty on the night of the sixteenth and the morning of the seventeenth, but I am hoping that one of these detectives can testify that this witness was seen going to the mailbox and taking this incriminating letter he had written out of the mailbox so the police wouldn’t find it when they came to search the apartment after the body had been identified.”
“Your Honor, I object to these statements being made in front of the jury,” Hamilton Burger said. “This is simply a grandstand—”
“Counsel will refrain from personalities,” Judge DeWitt said sharply. “The Court has previously stated that it dislikes to have offers of proof made in front of the jury. However, this statement was in response to a question asked by the Court itself, and the question was prompted by the fact that the prosecution objected to the recess. The Court feels that under the peculiar circumstances it is only fair to grant the motion, and Court will take a ten-minute recess.”
Mason hurried through the swinging gate in the bar to Paul Drake. “Put a shadow on Calvert,” he said.
Drake said, “Perry, you know those detectives went off duty at around one-thirty on the ‘morning of the seventeenth. There was no one there to see Calvert take that letter, and—”
Mason said in a low voice, “In poker, Paul, you sometimes shove in a stack of blue chips when you only have a pair of deuces in your hand. Get busy and follow Calvert. I think he’s going to skip out.”
Calvert, walking doggedly toward the door, was suddenly confronted by Myrtle Lamar. She said, “You know good and well that I took you up in the elevator on the sixteenth, the day of the murder, and I took you down again. When we got to the seventh floor you asked me—”
Suddenly Calvert shoved her out of the way and started running through the door of the courtroom and pell-mell down the corridor.
“Stop him!” someone screamed. “Stop that man!”
Two spectators tried to grab Calvert. He engaged in a wild struggle with them. Officers ran up and grabbed the man’s arms. His wrists were handcuffed behind his back.
There was pandemonium in the corridor.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake, Jerry Conway, and Myrtle Lamar sat in the courtroom after the commotion had subsided, after the judge had instructed the jury to bring in a verdict of “Not Guilty” in the case against Jerry Conway, after Calvert had been taken into custody.
“Where did you get the bright idea of what had happened?” Paul Drake asked Mason.
“That,” Mason said, “was the simplest part of it, the mathematics of the whole business which had been in the back of my mind but didn’t come out until something suddenly clicked.
“The pathologist stated that Rose had died almost two hours to the minute after she had eaten lunch. He thought that lunch had been eaten at four-forty. Actually we know from Mrs. Farrell that lunch had been eaten at about twelve-forty. That fixed the time of death at about two- forty. At that particular time Mrs. Farrell was out telephoning you, Conway.
“I suddenly remembered that I had told Calvert about locating him from the return address on the letter that was in the mailbox of the apartment house where Rose was living. Yet the police told us no such letter was in the box when they searched the place. Shortly after I told Calvert about the letter, he went all to pieces and insisted that I leave him alone. I felt certain that he would go to the Elsinore police almost immediately. He didn’t. He didn’t get in touch with them until sometime later, just about enough time for him to go and get that letter.
“The rest of it was just plain bluff, based on Myrtle’s noticing the guy’s shoes.”
“Well,” Jerry Conway said at length, “I’m going to ask you to appear before the stockholders’ meeting, Mason, and tell them the whole story of this murder case. Will you do it?”
Mason nodded.
“I have an idea,” Conway said, “that that will settle Gifford Farrell’s hash as far as any attempt to take over is concerned.”
Mason turned to Drake with a grin, and said, “Well, Paul, having bought Myrtle Lamar a good lunch, I think we now owe her a good dinner.”
Myrtle Lamar’s eyes instantly became hard and calculating. “It should be worth more than that,” she said. “It should be worth a … a fur coat!”
Jerry Conway grinned happily, said to Perry Mason, “Buy the gal a fur coat, Perry, and charge it to me … . Put it on your fee as an expense.”
The End
Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Daring Decoy
