"Would you," asked Judge Winters, "mind explaining to me exactly what happened? I find myself very much in the dark."
Mason nodded. "Colemar," he said, "was the partner of Harry McLane in an embezzlement. They embezzled money from Basset. Brunold was the father of Mrs. Basset's child. He'd spent years hunting for her after she had disappeared. When he found her, she was married. He called on her. The chauffeur, who was acting for Basset as spy, almost caught him. Brunold wanted her to leave Basset. She wasn't decided as to what she was going to do, but she did know that if Hartley Basset ever caught Brunold in her room, he would make a terrific scandal which would affect the boy. That was one of the things she didn't want. So she spirited Brunold out of the room. He dropped his glass eye when he was getting out—not the one he was wearing, but an extra one he carried in his pocket.
"Basset got that glass eye. He didn't know the identity of his wife's visitor, but he did know that Colemar had a glass eye. Apparently, he was the only one in the house who knew it. The eyes are pretty much the same color, if you'll notice. Basset got suspicious of Colemar, suspecting him of being intimate with his wife—something of which Colemar was entirely innocent. But, when Basset started checking up on Colemar, he uncovered evidence of Colemar's part in the embezzlement.
"Harry McLane went out to Basset's house, not to see Basset or to pay him off, but to force Colemar to kick through with enough of the embezzled money to keep Basset from prosecuting. About that time, Brunold was out making a final appeal to Mrs. Basset to leave the place, and Dick Basset was sending his young wife down to get acquainted with her fatherinlaw.
"Colemar thought he could intercede for McLane, that a little conversation might save a lot of cash. Basset called him on the glass eye business, sent him, probably, for some books of account, and showed his general suspicion. Colemar didn't bring the books. He picked up a quilt, a blanket and a gun, He also typed out a suicide note. Later on he suddenly realized that he would be the person logically suspected by the police if they weren't fooled by the suicide note—that was after the murder had been committed. So he cleaned the forged notes out of the file, extemporized a mask out of some carbon paper and ran out to show the woman who was waiting in the outer office that the murderer was a oneeyed man. He figured that would tie in nicely with the glass eye which Basset still held in his hand. When the woman surprised him by ripping off the mask, he was in a frenzy of panic. He struck her down and ran out of the place. He jumped in Basset's car, drove it away, then circled back to the garage, put up the car, came back and pretended he'd been to a movie. He found out then that he hadn't killed the Fenwick woman. He wanted to silence her forever. So he entered the room where the Fenwick girl was and kept hanging around. If he'd been left alone with her, he'd have killed her, but Mrs. Basset sent him out. Then he went up to his room and explained to McLane what had happened and that all McLane had to do was to insist he'd paid off the notes and no one could prove differently. That would have made it appear Basset had a lot of cash on him at the time of the murder and make the motive look like robbery."
Burger, staring at Perry Mason, said, "How do you know all this?"
"Simply by deductive reasoning," Mason said. "My God, Burger, it stuck out so plainly that it's a wonder it needed anyone to point it out to you. The murder must have been committed by a professional typist. The fake suicide note was written by a professional typist, someone who used the touch system. The murderer must also have been someone who was able to walk into Basset's study carrying something on his arm without attracting undue attention, because Basset didn't put up any fight, apparently hadn't sensed any danger. The murderer must have been someone with an artificial eye who wanted the authorities to know that he had an artificial eye. The only possible reason that a person would want to advertise his artificial eye was that he felt suspicion could thereby be directed on someone else.
"Moreover, Mrs. Basset wanted the Fenwick girl to have an uninterrupted interview with Hartley Basset. Therefore, she watched the front door until the last client had left before taking the Fenwick woman down to Hartley Basset's outer office. Yet, when this woman knocked at the door of Basset's inner office, some man was in there talking with Basset. That man must have been Colemar, unless it was someone who had entered through the back door, which wasn't very likely.
"Moreover, if a oneeyed man had been making a mask very hurriedly only for the purpose of concealing his features, he would only have torn out one eye hole. The fact that he tore out two eye holes shows that he was trying to direct attention to the empty eye socket. Now, if that had been Brunold, he'd never have advertised the fact of that empty eye socket."
"Then." Burger said, "young McLane must have been killed because he was going to talk."
"Probably," Mason said.
"But why the devil did the person who killed young McLane put a glass eye in his palm? That must have been done by Colemar. Why did he do it?"
Perry Mason, looking very innocent, said, "After all. Burger, there's only so much one can accomplish by using deductive reasoning. I'm free to confess that I'm at the end of my rope. I can't give you an answer to that."
Burger stared at him steadily. Mason, his face perfectly composed, puffed placidly at his cigarette.
Judge Winters slowly nodded his head. "Obvious," he said, "from the beginning, if a person hadn't allowed his mind to be blinded by a lot of extraneous details and had concentrated upon the obvious."
Perry Mason stretched and yawned, looked at his wristwatch and said, "I'd certainly like to hear from Sergeant Holcomb. I hope he gets Colemar without a shooting."
Burger said slowly, "Mason, you should have been a detective instead of a lawyer."
"Thank you," Mason told him. "I'm doing very well as it is."
"How did you know I was going to fall for the Bevins woman and bring her into court?" Burger asked.
"Because," Mason told him, "I'm too old a campaigner to underestimate an adversary. I knew that you'd get her here some way. I timed the whole play so that you would just about have time to bring her in as a surprise witness and confound me with her. I figured you'd do that."
"But you didn't tell her anything of your plans?"
"No, I figured the less she knew, the less she'd have to tell. I knew that if she told you folks the truth, you'd think she was lying."
"How did you know we'd be able to get her here?"
"That is where I didn't underestimate your ability, Burger." Burger sighed, got to his feet and started pacing the floor.
"It's plain enough, now that it's pointed out," he said, "but, by God, I'd have sworn Brunold committed that murder with the connivance and assistance of Mrs. Basset, and I'd have prosecuted them and demanded the death penalty, at least for Brunold."
He dropped into a chair and fell silent.
"After all," Judge Winters said in an aggrieved voice, "you should have taken me in on the play, Counselor, so that I wouldn't have appeared so ridiculous there in the courtroom."
Mason smiled, and said, "You'll pardon me, your Honor, and understand that the remark contains nothing of disrespect, but if you hadn't appeared so ridiculous, as you term it, you wouldn't have appeared convincing."