Perry Mason jerked his head toward Doctor Millsap. "Thank you, Doctor," he said, "for your diagnosis. If you ever need a lawyer, don't hesitate to call on me. In the meantime, I see these two men want to talk with you. For your information, they are detectives from the Homicide Bureau. I won't delay you any longer. Incidentally, as an attorney, I might tell you that you don't have to answer any questions you don't want to, and…"
"That's enough," one of the detectives said, advancing belligerently.
Perry Mason held his ground, his shoulders squared, his chin thrust forward, granitesteady eyes holding the detective in scornful appraisal. "And," continued Perry Mason, "if you should need an attorney, you've got my telephone number on that card on your desk. I don't know what these men want, but if I were in your place I wouldn't answer any questions."
Mason pushed past the detectives, without looking back. They glowered at him for a moment, then strode into the private office and slammed the door shut. Outside, in the entrance room, Doctor Millsap's office nurse dropped her head to the crook of her elbow, pillowed it on her desk and sobbed. Perry Mason stared at her for several seconds, his forehead furrowed in thoughtful appraisal. Then he slipped through the outer door and silently closed it behind him.
Chapter 10
Morning sun streamed through the windows of Perry Mason's office. The telephone rang. A long, thin shadow blotched against the frosted glass of the corridor door, then the knob turned, and Paul Drake entered the room as Della Street's busy fingers snapped the keys on the telephone board. Perry Mason opened the door from his inner office. "For you, chief," Della Street said, indicating the telephone.
Mason grinned at the detective. "See if it's important, Della," he told her.
Paul Drake held out a couple of newspapers. "See what's happened?" he asked. Mason raised his eyebrows in mute interrogation. Drake made a gesture of utter weariness, and said. "She's spilled her guts."
The lawyer stared steadily at the detective, his feet planted wide apart. Slowly he smiled. Della Street slammed the telephone back into place, looked up at Perry Mason, her face white with rage. "What's your trouble, sister?" Mason asked.
"That," she said, "was some smart aleck at headquarters who wanted to tell you—in a voice that fairly oozed gloating triumph—that your client, Rhoda Montaine, had just finished signing a statement in the district attorney's office, and that you could see her at any time. He said you wouldn't need a writ of habeas corpus; that she was being charged with murder in the first degree and that the authorities at the jail would be only too glad to let you see her at any time you wanted—and he put just the right amount of nasty sarcastic emphasis upon the 'too. "
Perry Mason stared down at her without changing a muscle of his facial expression. "Why," he asked, "didn't you let me talk with him?"
"Because he was just trying to goad you," she said.
Mason said slowly, "Hereafter, when any one wants to do that, put me on the line. Remember this, Della, I can dish it out, and I can take it." He turned to Paul Drake, "Come in, Paul," he said.
The men entered Mason's inner office, closed the door. Paul Drake whipped over a newspaper. "Details?" asked Perry Mason.
"Lots of them. They don't give the signed statement, but the paper was evidently held for release until the statement had been signed."
"What does she say?" Mason asked.
"She says that Moxley was trying to blackmail her; that he insisted on her coming to see him at two o'clock in the morning; that she got up while her husband was asleep, left the house and went to see Moxley; that she rang the doorbell for several minutes and couldn't get in, so she turned around, got in the car and went home."
"Does she say anything about how she rang the bell?"
"Yes, pushing her finger against the button and holding it there for several seconds at a time because she thought perhaps Moxley was asleep."
"And then," Perry Mason said, "I suppose they flashed the fact of the garage key on her, and asked her to explain how it got in Moxley's apartment, if she hadn't been able to get him to answer the door."
"Exactly," Drake said. "And the way she answered it was that she'd been there earlier in the afternoon and had dropped the keys; that she hadn't realized it until quite a bit later."
Mason smiled, a wry smile which held no mirth. It was like the grimace of a man who has bit into a lemon. "And all of this time," he said, "Carl Montaine is insisting that he locked the door of the garage when he put his car in, and that Rhoda must have had her keys in order to get the garage open; that she, herself, told him she had left her purse in the car and that she went out and unlocked the door in order to get the purse just before she went to bed."
"Oh, well," Drake said, reassuringly, "some one on the jury will believe her."
"Not after the district attorney's office gets done with the facts," Perry Mason said slowly. "You see they've trapped her into making the most damaging admission she could make."
"I don't see it," Drake said, his protruding eyes staring steadily at Mason.
"Don't you see?" Mason pointed out. "The strongest claim she could have made would have been selfdefense. It would have been her word against the sealed lips of a dead man. There was nothing the district attorney's office could have done to have contradicted her story. If she'd sprung it at the proper time and in the proper way, she'd have been almost certain to have won the sympathy and belief of the jury.
"Now, the newspaper accounts show that the people who lived next door heard the doorbell ringing during the time the murder was being committed. Rhoda kept thinking about that, and realized that there was an opportunity for her to claim she was the one who had been ringing the doorbell. At first blush, it looked like an easy out for her. If she could put herself in the position of having been on the porch, ringing that doorbell, she'd have an airtight alibi. It was a trap and she walked right into it.
"Now, the district attorney has got three shots at her. First, he can show, from the time element, that it couldn't have been she. Second, he can show from the keys that were found in the room that she must have been in the room with Moxley after she had unlocked the door of the garage. Third, and most dangerous of all, he can uncover the person who really was ringing that doorbell and put him on the witness stand to rebut Rhoda's testimony.
"By that time, the door to a plea of selfdefense has been closed. She's either got to establish the fact that she wasn't there at all, or she's got to be caught in so many falsehoods that she's guilty of first degree murder."
Drake nodded his head slowly. "I hadn't thought of it in just that light," he said, "but I can see where it fits in."
Della Street twisted the knob of the door, opened it just wide enough to slip through into Perry Mason's private office. "The father," she said, "is out there."
"Who?" asked Perry Mason.
"C. Phillip Montaine, of Chicago."
"How does he look, Della?"
"He's one of those men who are hard to figure. He's past sixty, but there isn't any film on his eyes. They're as bright as the eyes of a bird. He's got a closecropped white mustache, thin, straight lips and a poker face. He's welltailored and distinguished looking. He knows his way around."
Mason glanced from Della Street to Paul Drake, said slowly, "This man has got to be handled just right. In many ways, he represents the key to the situation. He controls the purse strings. I want to put him in such a position that he'll pay for Rhoda's defense. My idea of what he would be like doesn't check with that description, Della. I figured him for a pompous, egotistical man who has been accustomed to dominating people through his financial position. I figured that I'd make him mad and frighten him a little bit by letting him think he had to give Rhoda a break to keep the newspapers from ridiculing the Montaine name that he's so touchy about."