"And how does Mrs. Winlock feel about all this?" Mason asked.
"Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, she doesn't share my feelings. Apparently the only thing that is bothering her is the question of how to prevent this situation from being disclosed, how to prevent her social set from knowing that she has been living a life of deceit for the past fourteen years, that she hasn't been married to me at all. Her only concern is for the immediate effect on her social and financial life."
"All right," Mason said, "go home and talk it over with her. Remember this, as an attorney at law I'm obligated to do what is for the best interests of my client.
"You tell me that he was alive and well when you left, but your wife and your stepson tell me that he was lying there fatally injured; only, because his clothes were saturated with whiskey, they thought he was drunk.
"I'm not in a position to take your word against theirs. I have to do what's for Dianne's best interests."
Winlock said, "You can't do it, Mason. You're a reputable attorney. You can't suborn perjury."
"You think your wife is going to perjure herself?"
"I know it."
"You don't think Boring might have been putting on an act for their benefit? That he had poured whiskey over his clothes and was lying there, apparently in a stupor? That he then got up when you entered the unit and talked with you?"
"There was no odor of whiskey on his garments when I talked with him."
Mason said, "If such is the case, you are Boring's murderer. You have to be."
"Don't be a fool, Mason," Winlock said.
"Under those circumstances," Mason observed somewhat thoughtfully, "the case would-under those circumstances-be mixed all to hell. Nobody would know what to do. It would shake this community to its foundations."
"If my wife and my stepson get on the stand and commit perjury," Winlock said, "I suppose I have no alternative but to get on the stand and tell a similar story, but I'll tell you right now, Mason, it would be a lie."
"Under those circumstances," Mason said, "I wouldn't call you as a witness. But that doesn't keep me from calling Mrs. Winlock and Marvin Harvey Palmer."
Winlock looked at Mason, then hastily averted his eyes. "I wish I knew the answer to this," he said.
"And I wish I did," Mason told him, eying him thoughtfully.
"I can, of course, get my wife out of the jurisdiction of the court," Winlock said.
"Sure you can," Mason said, "but I'll warn you of one thing. If I decide to put on a defense and call your wife and stepson and they're not available, I'll tell the court the conversations I have had with them and the fact that they have offered to testify. I'll insist on having the case continued until they can be called as witnesses, and you can't stay out of the jurisdiction of the court indefinitely. You have too many property interests here."
Winlock shook his head, said, "I have no alternative. I'm gripped in a vise." He walked to the door, groped for the knob and went out.
Della Street regarded Mason quizzically.
Five minutes later the telephone rang.
Della Street said, "Mrs. Winlock for you, Mr. Mason."
Mason took the receiver.
Again Mrs. Winlock's voice, almost mockingly cool, said, "Have you reached a decision yet, Mr. Mason?"
"Not yet," Mason said.
"I'll be available at my house, Mr. Mason. Give me a few minutes to get ready. My son will be with me."
"And you'll testify as you have indicated?" Mason asked.
"I'll testify as we have indicated, provided you will give me your word as a gentleman and an attorney that you and Dianne will preserve the secret of Dianne's relationship, and will accept the financial settlement offered by Mr. Winlock.
"Good day, Mr. Mason."
Again the phone was hung up at the other end of the line.
At that minute two waiters appeared, bringing in the luncheon.
"Well, Mr. Perry Mason," Della Street said, when the waiters had left the room, "you seem to have worked yourself into a major dilemma."
Mason nodded, toyed with the food for a few minutes, then pushed his plate aside, got up and started pacing the room.
"Know what you're going to do?" Della Street asked.
"Damn it!" Mason exploded. "The evidence points to the fact that George Winlock is the murderer."
"He has to be," Della Street said. "That is, unless Dianne is lying."
"I have to take my client's story as the truth," Mason said. "I am bound to accept her statement at face value. And yet she has to be lying about making that phone call to the manager of the motel. Mrs. Winlock must be the one who made that call. Dillard's testimony as to the time Dianne left clinches that. Dianne simply didn't have time to get to the phone and make that call.
"Now then, the significant thing is that Mrs. Winlock didn't make the call until after her husband had left the cabin and had a chance to report to her that he had frightened or forced Boring into returning the blackmail money."
"Then that leaves George D. Winlock the murderer," Della Street said.
"And he's handled things so cleverly," Mason agreed, "that if I do try to expose him as a murderer, I look like a heel. If, on the other hand, I put Mrs. Winlock and her son on the stand and let them swear to the story they've offered to tell, I get Dianne off the hook but leave myself open to a charge of suborning perjury at any time Winlock wants to lower the boom on me."
"Could this be a very shrewd, clever stunt that they jointly have carefully worked out and rehearsed?" Della Street asked.
"You're damn right it could," Mason said.
"And," she asked, "what's going to be your countermove?"
"I don't know," Mason told her. "At first I thought it was simply an offer to furnish perjured testimony and I was going to throw the whole thing out in the alley. Now I'm not so certain that it isn't a carefully, cunningly contrived plot to hamstring my defense and put me in such a position that I don't know what actually did happen."
The lawyer resumed his pacing of the floor.
After a few minutes he said, "Of course, Della, it's not up to me to prove who did murder the guy-that's up to the prosecution. My job is to prove Dianne innocent."
"Can you do it?" she asked.
"With this testimony I could do it hands down," Mason said.
Again the telephone rang.
"Paul Drake," Della Street said.
"Hello, Perry," Paul Drake said. "I'm finished down here at the Restawhile Motel."
"What did you find out?"
"The distance to be covered is about a hundred feet each way. Moving at a fairly normal rate of speed it takes about thirty seconds each way. Moving at a rapid rate of speed, you cut that time down.
"Getting in, picking up the telephone and putting the call through accounts for seven seconds. So her testimony is approximately correct. Figure about a minute and ten seconds as the outside time limit if she did what she said she did."
"All right," Mason said, "here's something else for you, Paul. Drive down to the telephone booth three blocks down the street. Time yourself from the entrance of the motel. Call me from that booth and let me know how long it takes until you hear my voice. I'll be waiting here at the phone."
"Okay," Drake said, "and then I want some lunch. I'm ravenous. I suppose you folks are sitting up there smug and well fed."
"We're neither smug nor well fed," Mason said. "I'm sitting on the end of a great big limb and I'm not too certain somebody between me and the tree doesn't have a very sharp saw.
"Get busy and see what you can find out, Paul."
Four minutes later, Paul Drake telephoned.