“I understand Mr. Mason’s position. However, I don’t care to hear a lot of extraneous or hearsay evidence.”
“This isn’t hearsay. This gets right down to the gist of the case.”
“All right, go ahead.”
Burger said, “Mr. Goshen was there with you, Lieutenant Tragg. Who else?”
“The defendant in the case, Lucille Barton, a gentleman by the name of Arthur Colson, who had apparently been interested in the purchase of the gun, and a plain-clothes officer.”
“Mr. Mason permitted you to take his fingerprints?”
“Yes.”
“Did he make any comment about his fingerprint being on the inside of the gun?”
“He admitted that he had used a key which he said he had received in the mail to enter the apartment of Lucille Barton on the day of the murder...”
“Come, come, gentlemen,” Judge Osborn interrupted. “Despite the fact that there isn’t any objection from the attorney for the defense, I feel that...”
“But he admitted seeing the gun in the defendant’s apartment,” Burger said.
“A gun,” Mason corrected.
“Well, a gun similar to this gun,” Burger retorted. “That certainly is significant and it’s relevant.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Judge Osborn said. “Go right ahead.”
Lieutenant Tragg said, “At that time I pointed out to Mr. Mason that Mr. Goshen was a witness who had seen two people at the garage where the body was found at about the time the murder must have been committed. One of these persons Goshen had previously identified as the defendant. She was accompanied by a man who answered the description of Mr. Perry Mason. I asked Mr. Mason to stand up so that Mr. Goshen could see if he were the same person. Mr. Mason refused to do so.”
“You mean he refused to get up?” Mr. Burger said, his voice for dramatic emphasis showing a synthetic incredulity. “You mean that Mr. Mason, an attorney at law, refused to let a witness look at him to see if he could be identified as a man who had accompanied...”
“I think that question’s argumentative and has already been asked and answered in effect,” Judge Osborn said. “The Court is going to try to keep this examination somewhere within the limits of the legal rules. It is, of course, a peculiar situation where an attorney for the defense refuses to object.” And Judge Osborn frowned disapprovingly at Perry Mason.
“Your Honor,” Mason said, “quite obviously the district attorney is preparing to attack my reputation by insinuation and innuendo. He knows, of course, that the press is represented at this hearing. I am fully aware that by pretending to be balked by technical objections on my part he can leave the impression that I am fighting to suppress the real facts. Therefore, I am throwing the doors wide open. If he has any facts, I want them brought out.”
“Well,” Judge Osborn said, “I guess, on second thought, I can appreciate your position, Mr. Mason. However, of course, the court can’t be used as a place for trying personalities.”
“There aren’t personalities, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said. “This gets right down to the meat of the situation.”
“All right, go ahead, start carving,” Judge Osborn said.
“Now then, did you subsequently make an attempt to have Mr. Mason identified by Mr. Goshen?”
“I most certainly did.”
“What did you do?”
“I had Mr. Goshen in my car with me, waiting in front of the exit of Mr. Mason’s office building. I was working in co-operation with reporters who were also covering the freight exit of the building and who were prepared to signal me in the event Mr. Mason left the building by that entrance.”
“And what did Mr. Mason do?”
Tragg grinned and said, “He had himself put in a packing case and shipped out of the back door as merchandise.”
There was a ripple of merriment through the courtroom.
“Did Goshen subsequently identify Mr. Mason?”
“I wasn’t there at the time,” Tragg said. “One of my associates, Sergeant Holcomb, was there when that happened.”
“Cross-examine,” Burger said triumphantly.
Mason said smilingly, “How do you know that I left the building in a packing case, Lieutenant?”
“Well, now,” Tragg said hurriedly, “perhaps I should correct that. As a matter of fact, I only knew it from what I read in the papers and what I was told. I didn’t see you leave the building in the packing case. If I had...” He broke off and grinned.
“Did you talk with anyone who saw me in that packing case, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir.”
“You have any reason to believe I was in that packing case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What makes you think so?”
“It was the only way you could have got out of the building without having been observed.”
“Permit me to correct you, Lieutenant. You probably don’t realize it, but as a matter of fact I was in Paul Drake’s office until late that evening, until long after the packing case had been shipped. If you had talked with the janitor of the building you would have found that I left and went down in the elevator with him, accompanied by one of Paul Drake’s men, a Mr. Jerry Lando, a man, incidentally, who is here in court and who can be questioned by you at any time.”
Tragg’s face showed surprise. “You mean...”
“I mean exactly what I say, Lieutenant. I’d suggest that you have a talk with Mr. Lando before you make any more accusations based on hearsay. Now, thank you very much, Lieutenant Tragg. I have no further questions on cross-examination.”
Tragg and Burger exchanged glances. Tragg stepped down from the witness stand, turned when he was halfway across the courtroom, and said, “Where is this Jerry Lando?”
“Right here,” Jerry Lando said, standing up.
“Never mind,” Hamilton Burger said, hiding embarrassment behind a new belligerency. “I’ll call Sergeant Holcomb to the witness stand and we’ll clear that matter up very rapidly.”
Sergeant Holcomb came striding forward, raised his hand, took the oath, and with a satisfied anticipatory grin, settled himself in the witness chair.
Hamilton Burger asked a few preliminary questions as to name, age, residence, occupation, and then plunged into the evidence. “Sergeant, where were you on the evening of the sixth — that was Thursday, you’ll remember.”
“I remember,” Sergeant Holcomb grinned. “I located Perry Mason at the Sleepwell Auto Court and got a witness by the name of Carl Goshen to accompany me. We went out to make an identification. We made it.”
Sergeant Holcomb grinned gleefully as he thought over the events of the evening.
“What happened while you were there and in your presence?” Burger asked.
“Well, we drove into the auto court and in some way the word got around to newspapers. A bunch of newspaper photographers were out there. They took pictures of us when we drove in. They did that before I could stop them.”
“And then what happened?”
“Well, when the flash bulbs started popping, Mason, who was in Cabin Number 6, evidently accompanied by this Jerry Lando because Jerry Lando had signed the register and given the license number of his car, well, Mr. Mason came running out, and when he saw all the newspaper photographers he put his hat up in front of his face to try and keep them from getting his picture; but they started shooting flash bulbs anyway. Then he saw he was trapped, so he turned around and walked back to the cabin.”
“Did you follow him into the cabin?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
Sergeant Holcomb grinned and said, “Because it wasn’t necessary. I’d done all I wanted to do. The witness Goshen, who was with me, had seen Mason come out of the cabin, had seen him walk and run, had seen his size and build, and he identified him absolutely as the man he’d seen in front of that garage about the time the murder was being committed. He’d previously identified the defendant, Lucille Barton.”