The Case of the Postponed Murder
- Автор: Гарднер Эрл Стенли
- Серия: Perry Mason #85
- Год: 1973
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-8161-6090-7
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Case of the Postponed Murder». Краткое содержание книги:
“This is outrageous,” Eversel stormed. “It’s the work of a shyster criminal lawyer.”
Mrs. Wentworth said, “Let me talk with him, Sidney. Please,” and then to Perry Mason, “What is it you want, Mr. Mason?”
“I want a square deal for my client,” Mason said. “I want you to attend that preliminary hearing and tell the truth.”
“What do you mean by the truth?”
“That it wasn’t a shot which was fired when Mae Farr was aboard the yacht, it was the taking of a flashlight photograph.”
“By whom?” Mrs. Wentworth asked.
Eversel said, “Juanita, don’t—”
“Please, Sidney,” she interrupted.
Mason said, “By Eversel.”
She said, “Mr. Eversel holds several important positions. He’s on the board of directors of a bank, a trust company, and other important corporations. He simply can’t afford to have any scandal connected with his name.”
“Taking a picture doesn’t necessarily mean a scandal,” Mason said.
“It would in this instance.”
“Was fear of scandal,” Mason asked, “the hold that Wentworth had over you?”
She met his eyes steadily and said, “Yes.”
“And what were you holding out for?”
She said calmly, “Money for my parents. Sidney offered... I could have secured it elsewhere, but I was just as obstinate as Penn was. My parents lived on a large hacienda in Mexico. The government took their land and gave it to the peons. They were impoverished. It was only fair that Penn should make some financial settlement. He took an unfair advantage by threatening to drag Sidney’s name into the case. I knew Sidney couldn’t afford to have the publicity, and Penn knew it too. Penn threatened to sue Sidney for alienation of affections. I knew how to handle Penn. There was only one way. I had to fight him and master him. Otherwise, there would never have been any peace for us.”
“How about Eversel?” Mason asked Mrs. Wentworth. “How did he feel about it?”
“He was impulsive,” she said. “He was...”
“Juanita, please don’t drag me into this,” Eversel said. “He’s a shrewd lawyer, and he’s just trapping you.”
“The truth can’t hurt us,” she said, and then added, after a significant moment, “now.”
“Were you,” Mason asked, “glad that your husband was killed?”
“I am not glad to have anyone killed.”
“You were relieved?”
She met his eyes and said, “Naturally. It was a shock to me of course. There was much about Penn that was good, and a lot more that was all bad. He desired to dominate people. He wanted to get them in his clutches and in his power. He was a brute — particularly as far as women are concerned.”
Mason said, “Well, there’s your subpoena, Eversel. You can’t say I didn’t give you a chance to play fair. If you’re going anywhere, you can drop me at an airport where I can pick up a car, and,” Mason added with a smile, “when I say drop me, I use the term figuratively.”
Eversel said, “To hell with you. You can go back the way you came.”
Mason said, “My friends have left. I thought I might have to wait all night to serve the subpoena.”
Eversel eyed him suspiciously.
Mrs. Wentworth said, “Please, Sidney. We could leave him in Los Angeles. You don’t want to go away and leave him here, do you?”
That idea appeared suddenly disquieting to Eversel.
“Please,” Juanita Wentworth asked, flashing him a glance from her limpid, dark eyes. “This is once, Sidney, when I think I know best.”
Eversel hesitated a moment, then shoved his gun into a hip pocket, moved over to the pilot’s seat in the plane, fastened the seat belt in sulky silence, and operated the starting mechanism which sent the motor roaring into life. He taxied out to the level field and sat grimly silent while he warmed up the motor of the plane.
Mrs. Wentworth, raising her voice so it could be heard above the sound of the motor, said, “Don’t you think, Mr. Mason, it would be better for your client to tell the truth and face the consequences instead of trying to drag us into it?”
Mason, pushing his hands down deep in his trouser pockets, sunk his chin on his chest and stared moodily at the floor of the plane. “That,” he said musingly, “is something that’s been running through my own mind.”
Chapter 12
Daylight found Mason sitting in the narrow confines of Paul Drake’s private office, studying huge, glossy paper enlargements with a magnifying glass.
Drake, seated across the desk, chewed gum nervously. His eyes surveyed the lawyer speculatively. “That,” he said, “was the biggest enlargement we could make and still keep any detail in the print. As it is, you’ll notice it shows considerable grain. The negative was wire sharp and fine grained, but we’ve blown it up to a point where it commences to get fuzzy. Each one of those prints represents only a quarter of the negative.”
“I understand,” Mason said, not looking up, but continuing his patient search with the magnifying glass.
“And this other one, the one my pals slipped me,” Drake said, “is an eleven by fourteen enlargement, from the negative taken after the Pennwent was brought into port. I was lucky to get that print. I can get bigger enlargements, but it will take time and a little manipulation.”
“Time,” Mason said, “is the one thing we haven’t got. That preliminary hearing is called for ten o’clock this morning.”
“Exactly what,” Drake asked, “are you looking for, Perry?”
Mason said, “I’m looking for a lucky break.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m hoping to find something in one photograph which isn’t in the other.”
“You mean the figures, a person...”
“No,” Mason said, “some significant difference in the furniture. For instance, look at this cigarette tray. In the picture Eversel took, it has half a dozen cigarette stubs on it. In this picture taken after the body was discovered, there are only two.”
“Well?” Drake asked. “What’s wrong with that?”
Mason shook his head. “A person committing a murder,” he said, “doesn’t bother to tidy up the place and empty the ashtrays. If he should do that for any reason, he doesn’t stick around to smoke two cigarettes.”
Drake frowned. “Exactly what are you getting at, Perry?” he asked.
Mason said, “I’m darned if I know exactly, Paul, but I’m working on the theory of elimination. I’d like to find something to substantiate my idea. If I could— Hello, what’s this?” His magnifying glass remained stationary over a section of one of the enlargements.
Outside, the first rays of sunlight tinted the tops of the office buildings, made the electric light in Drake’s office seem artificial and unreal. The morning light, pouring through the window, showed Mason’s skin oily with fatigue, brought into prominence the tips of stubble which had grown out on his chin during the last twenty-four hours.
“What is it?” Drake asked.
Mason passed the photograph across to him, indicated a section with his finger, and said, “Take a look, Paul.”
Drake studied it through the magnifying glass and said, “Gosh, Perry, it doesn’t look like anything to me. It’s something round in a case, some kind of a rare coin, I suppose. Wentworth, you know, was quite a collector.”
“Uh huh,” Mason said. “Let’s assume that it is a coin. It isn’t so much what the object is as where it went. You’ll notice that it doesn’t appear in this other photograph, yet it was up on the shelf, and there’s something else across the top of that case.”
“It looks like a cartridge,” Drake said, studying it carefully.