"They can show she was in the room at the time of death," Drake said. "The killing certainly must have taken place right around two o'clock, between two and two twenty, when the neighbors decided to notify the police. It's a foregone conclusion that Rhoda Montaine had left her house in the dead of night to go to Moxley's apartment. The fact that she was there is shown by the fact that her garage keys were there. She had to have the garage keys in order to open the garage doors when she started. She left them there. If she didn't kill him herself, the jury certainly is going to believe that she was there when the killing took place, and must know who did it."
"That's just the point," Perry Mason said slowly. "I'm not certain but what she may be trying to shield somebody."
"What makes you think that?"
"The fact that there are no fingerprints on the doorknob," Mason said.
"Rhoda wore gloves," the detective reminded him.
"Well, what if she did? If she had worn gloves, she wouldn't have left fingerprints on anything, would she?"
"That's right. And the police didn't find any of her fingerprints."
"Then," Mason insisted, "if she hadn't left fingerprints because she wore gloves, she wouldn't need to worry about fingerprints."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that a woman wearing gloves wouldn't leave any of her fingerprints, but when there were no fingerprints on the knob of the door or on the murder weapon it means that some one took a rag and carefully obliterated all of the fingerprints. The only reason a person would do that would be to obliterate certain telltale fingerprints. A person who was wearing gloves wouldn't have left behind any fingerprints to worry about—nothing she would need to obliterate."
Drake's frown was thoughtful. "So that's what you were getting at when you phoned me," he said.
Perry Mason resumed his pacing of the office. Abruptly, he jerked open the door of a coat closet, pulled out a hat, clapped it firmly into position on his head, glanced meaningly at Della Street. "Take a look at that habeas corpus petition," he said. "It should be ready for my signature."
She nodded, moved with the swiftly silent efficiency of a nurse making things ready for a major operation. A few moments, and she returned, bearing a piece of paper in her hand. "This is the last page," she said, "ready for your signature."
Perry Mason scrawled his signature. "Send it up," he said. "Get a judge to issue the writ. See that it's served. I'm going out."
"Going to be long?" asked Paul Drake.
Perry Mason's smile was ominous. "Just long enough," he said, "to give Doctor Claude Millsap the works."
Chapter 9
Doctor Millsap's nurse bristled with indignation. "You can't go in there," she said; "that's Doctor Millsap's private office. He doesn't see people without an appointment. You'll have to make an appointment at his convenience."
Perry Mason stared steadily at her. "I don't like to fight with women," he said. "I've told you that I was an attorney and that I was going to see Doctor Millsap on a matter of great importance to him. Now you get through that door and tell Doctor Millsap that Perry Mason wants to see him about a.32 caliber Colt automatic that was registered in his name. You tell him that I'm going to wait just exactly thirty seconds, then I'm coming in."
A hint of panic showed in the nurse's eyes. She hesitated, turned, opened the door of Doctor Millsap's private office and slammed it shut behind her with emphasis. Perry Mason consulted his wristwatch. Precisely at the end of thirty seconds he strode to the door, twisted the knob and pushed it open.
Doctor Millsap wore a white robe. A concave mirror was fastened about his forehead with a leather strap, giving him a decidedly professional appearance. The office smelled of antiseptics. Surgical instruments glittered in glass cases. A row of bookcases was visible through an open doorway. On the other side could be glimpsed a tiled operating room.
The nurse had one hand on Doctor Millsap's shoulder. Her eyes were wide. She had been leaning toward the physician. At the sound of the opening door she whirled, with panic in her eyes. Doctor Millsap's face was a sickly gray. Perry Mason shut the door behind him with silent finality. "It happens," he said slowly, "that time's valuable. I didn't have any to waste in preliminaries, and I didn't want you to take time to think up a bunch of lies and make me waste more time proving that they were lies."
Doctor Millsap squared his shoulders. "I don't know who you are," he said, "and I certainly don't understand the meaning of this unwarranted intrusion. You can either get out, or I'll call the police and have you put out."
Perry Mason's feet were planted wide apart, his chin belligerent, his eyes cold and steady. He was like a solid block of granite—foursquare, cold, unyielding. "When you get the police on the telephone, Doctor," he said, "explain to them just how it happened that you made a false burial certificate for Gregory Lorton in February, 1929. You can also explain to them how it happened that you gave Rhoda Montaine a.32 caliber automatic, with instructions to shoot Gregory Moxley."
Doctor Millsap ran his tongue along the line of his dry lips, looked over to the nurse with desperate eyes. "Get out, Mabel," he said.
She hesitated a moment, stared venomously at Perry Mason, then walked past him through the door. "See that we're not disturbed," Mason told her. The slamming of the door of the outer office constituted his answer.
Mason held Doctor Millsap's eyes. "Who are you?" asked Doctor Millsap.
"I'm Rhoda Montaine's attorney."
Momentary relief became apparent in Doctor Millsap's expression. "She sent you here?"
"No."
"Where is she?"
"Under arrest," Perry Mason said slowly, "for murder."
"How did you happen to come here?"
"Because I wanted to find out about that death certificate and the gun."
"Sit down," said Doctor Millsap, and dropped into a chair as he spoke, as though his knees had lost their strength. "Let's see," he said, "a man by the name of Lorton… Of course, I have a great number of cases and I can't remember, offhand, the facts connected with each one. I could, perhaps, look it up in my records. You say it was in 1929?… If you could recall some of the particular circumstances…"
Mason's face flushed with anger. "To hell with that line of stuff!" he said. "You're friendly with Rhoda Montaine, I don't know how friendly. You knew she'd married Gregory Lorton and that Lorton had skipped out. For some reason she didn't want to get a divorce. On February twentieth, 1929, a patient was admitted to the Sunnyside Hospital with pneumonia. The name under which he was booked was that of Gregory Lorton. You were the attending physician. The patient died on February twentythird. You signed the death certificate."
Doctor Millsap licked his lips once more. His eyes were sick with panic. Perry Mason shot out his left arm doubled it smartly at the elbow so he could consult the dial of his wristwatch. "You've got ten seconds," he said, "to start talking."
Doctor Millsap took a deep breath. Quick, panicstricken words poured from his lips like water from a hose. "You don't understand. You wouldn't adopt that attitude if you did. You're Rhoda Montaine's lawyer. I'm her best friend. I'm in love with her. I care more for her than anything in the world. I've loved her ever since I've known her."
"Why did you sign the death certificate?"
"So she could collect the life insurance."
"What was wrong with the life insurance?"
"We couldn't prove that Gregory Lorton had died. There was a rumor that he had been in an airplane wreck. The records of the transportation company showed that he'd purchased a ticket to go on that plane, but we couldn't prove conclusively that he had been on that plane. No bodies were recovered, except the body of one man. The life insurance company wouldn't take that as proof. Some lawyers told Rhoda she would have to wait for seven years and then bring an action to have it established on the records that her husband was dead. She didn't want to remain married to him. If she had secured a divorce, that would have been an admission that he was alive. She didn't know what to do. She felt she was a widow. She felt, beyond any doubt, that he was dead.