The Case of the Shapely Shadow
- Автор: Гарднер Эрл Стенли
- Серия: Perry Mason #66
- Год: 1960
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Case of the Shapely Shadow». Краткое содержание книги:
The arrival of the district attorney caused a veritable buzz of comment and it was in the middle of this buzz that the bailiff pounded his gavel and said, “Everybody stand up, please.”
Judge Seymour entered the courtroom, nodded to the jurors and the spectators, said, “Be seated, please. The case of the People versus Janice Wainwright. The defendant is in court, the jurors are all present. Proceed with your case, Mr. Prosecutor.”
“I will call Lieutenant Sophia of the Las Vegas police force,” Ruskin said.
The officer came forward, was sworn and was asked by Ruskin whether or not the defendant had made any statement when she had been arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“She did.”
“Was that statement voluntary?”
“It was.”
“Were there any threats?”
“No.”
“Were any inducements held out?”
“There were no inducements and no promises. No threats were made. She was advised of her rights. In fact, she had previously been advised by her attorney not to make any statement — to say nothing.”
“But she did make a statement?”
“She made a statement to Lieutenant Tragg and to me.”
“And there were no inducements of any sort held out?”
“No inducements of any sort. I simply told her that if she was innocent she had nothing to fear, and that if she wanted to make a statement that would convince us of her innocence, the matter wouldn’t go any farther. We’d let her step out of the car and go back to keep her appointment.”
“Very well. Will you tell the Court and the jury what she said?”
“Do you wish to cross-examine on the voir dire?” Judge Seymour asked Mason.
“No, Your Honor. If the defendant said anything, let’s hear what she said.”
“Proceed,” Ruskin said to the witness.
“Well, she said that her employer, Mr. Theilman, had told her not to open any letters which came from A. B. Vidal; that an envelope came from Vidal; that she didn’t open it, but that later on she saw that Mr. Theilman had torn this letter up and put it in the wastebasket; that she had seen it there; that she was curious; that she had put the pieces together; that the letter contained a message telling Theilman to have the blackmail money on pain of death.
“She said that Theilman had then sent her out to buy a suitcase; that when she returned with the suitcase she retained one key and gave Theilman the suitcase with the other key. She said that Theilman apparently never thought about the missing key and didn’t ask her for it; that he took the suitcase, was in his private office for a few minutes, then brought out the suitcase; that at that time it was quite heavy; that it must have weighed twenty-five or thirty pounds; that the suitcase was locked. He told her to take the suitcase and go to the Union Depot and put the suitcase in locker number FO82. She was to take the key to the locker and mail it to A. B. Vidal at General Delivery, Los Angeles. In the event locker FO82 was already occupied, she was to take any one of the other four adjacent lockers in the same tier on the left.”
“And did she tell you what she did?”
“She said she took the suitcase, that she took a cab and went at once to the office of Perry Mason; that she told Mr. Mason she suspected her employer was being blackmailed; that she produced her extra key to the suitcase; that Mr. Mason opened it in her presence and in the presence of Miss Street; that the suitcase was filled with twenty-dollar bills; that they spent several minutes reading numbers from the twenty-dollar bills.
“She said that they read these numbers into a dictating machine and also into a tape recorder; that they then closed and locked the suitcase and Mr. Mason retained the key; that the defendant and Della Street went to the Union Depot, put the suitcase in a locker, and that Della Street was the one who mailed the locker key to A. B. Vidal; that thereafter the witness returned to the office; and that shortly after her return and immediately after lunch, Mr. Theilman stated that he was going home. A short time later he phoned to say he wouldn’t be back in the office.
“The defendant further stated that she didn’t see Mr. Theilman after that, that was the last time she saw him alive; that at about eight-forty on the morning of the fourth she talked with Mr. Mason on the phone, telling him that police had been at the office asking questions about Mr. Theilman; that his wife had reported him missing; that Mason told her not to lie to the police but not to be too available, and not to tell them things unless she was specifically asked about those things.
“She said that almost immediately after she had finished talking with Mr. Mason, Mr. Theilman called her on the telephone.”
“Now, just a moment. Let’s not have any misunderstanding about this,” Ruskin said. “She said that Mr. Theilman called her on the telephone?”
“Yes.”
“And at what time?”
“Immediately after she had finished talking with Perry Mason. She placed the time of her call to Perry Mason at about twenty minutes before nine o’clock in the morning, and placed Mr. Theilman’s call at being perhaps two or three minutes after she had finished talking with Mr. Mason.”
“And what did she say Mr. Theilman told her?”
“Mr. Theilman instructed her to go to the safe, to take two hundred and fifty dollars out of the petty cash drawer, to get a ticket to Las Vegas on an evening plane that night and to meet the Union Pacific Domeliner, The City of Los Angeles, when it came through at eleven-twenty that evening; he told her that his first wife, Carlotta Theilman, would be on that train; that the defendant was to meet her and take her to a hotel Mrs. Theilman would designate.
“According to her story, after they were located in this hotel in Las Vegas, she was to go to the Western Union Telegraph office and send a telegram to Theilman, care of Western Union at Las Vegas, telling him where they were registered; that thereafter the defendant was to remain in the company of Carlotta Theilman until she received different instructions.
“The witness further stated that Theilman told her he was trying to consummate a stock deal with his former wife by which he would either get possession of the stock or be given the exclusive voting privileges on that stock.”
“That was all?”
“That was substantially all,” the witness said.
“Cross-examine,” Ruskin snapped.
Mason glanced at the clock, seemed tremendously bored, said, “I have no questions.”
“Very well,” Ruskin said. “Now, I don’t want to embarrass counsel by putting him on the stand as a witness in a case in which he is representing a defense client. I will, therefore, offer to stipulate with counsel that he and his secretary did make tape recordings and records of certain numbers on the twenty-dollar bills which were in the suitcase that was taken to his office by the defendant; that Mr. Mason and his secretary, Della Street, were subpoenaed on the fifth with subpoenas duces tecum ordering them to appear forthwith before the grand jury, bringing those records with them; that in response to those subpoenas Mr. Mason and his secretary did so appear and produced certain records in the form of tape recordings and the disc from a dictating machine.
“I will further stipulate that I have here a list of numbers of twenty-dollar bills which were taken from the tape recording and the disc. They are arranged for purposes of easy reference. I will assure counsel that these are an accurate transcription of the records which they surrendered to the grand jury and I will ask counsel to stipulate that they may be received in evidence as such, in order to avoid the embarrassment of having counsel or his secretary called as a witness.”