“A little of your co-operation goes a long, long way,” Burger said, and nodded to Tragg.
“Where is the gun?” Tragg asked.
Mason opened the right-hand desk drawer.
Tragg said, “Why wasn’t it in that drawer when I was here before?”
“It’s a long story,” Mason said.
“You said over the telephone that you had misplaced it.”
“I beg your pardon,” Mason said, “I think my secretary told you the gun had been misplaced.”
“By whom?”
“Now, that’s a long story,” Mason said. “I’m debating with myself whether to tell you or not.”
“Well, you’d better tell us,” Hamilton Burger said, “because I’m doing a little debating myself. I’m going to have you before the grand jury and I don’t know whether to try and get you for being an accessory after the fact on a murder charge or concealing and tampering with evidence.”
“Under those circumstances,” Mason said, “perhaps I had better not tell my story until I appear before the grand jury.”
Burger said to Tragg, “Can you check that gun for fingerprints?”
“You seldom find fingerprints on a gun,” Tragg said. “Sometimes on an automatic you get a thumbprint on the base of the clip but you very seldom find prints on a gun. However, I’ll process it for fingerprints as soon as we get to Headquarters.”
Tragg inserted a pencil in the barrel of the gun, opened a dispatch case he was carrying, carefully fitted the gun into a metallic cradle and was about to close the lid when Burger said, “Look for the number.”
Tragg again inserted the pencil in the barrel, lifted out the gun, then checked the number.
“The number,” he said, “is C 48809.”
Burger consulted his notebook. “All right,” he said, “that’s the first one he bought.”
Burger regarded Mason thoughtfully. “I am going to tell you, Mason, if there’s been any substitution of guns in this case I’m going to proceed against you... I’ll throw the book at you.”
“What do you mean, substitution of guns?”
“Garvin Hastings bought two identical thirty-eight caliber revolvers in his lifetime,” Burger said. “We’ve looked up the records and find that one gun was purchased about two years ago, and one about fourteen months ago. When he bought the second gun he told the salesman at the sporting goods store that he wanted a weapon for his wife’s protection.”
“And this is the second gun?” Mason asked.
“This is the first gun.”
“Then I don’t see what all the shouting is about,” Mason told him.
“I’ll tell you what the shouting is about,” Burger said. “You love to mix us up and mix guns up, and my best guess is that your client had access to both guns. You switched guns after firing a couple of shots from the wrong gun. I’ll bet ten to one that when we process this gun at ballistics we’ll find that it was not the gun that killed Hastings.”
“In that event,” Mason said, “you won’t have a case against Adelle Hastings, will you?”
Burger said angrily, “I’m completely out of patience with you, Mason, and I’m out of patience with your tactics. We just may have a murder case against both Adelle Hastings and Perry Mason. If you’ve juggled the evidence I’m going to hold you as an accessory after the fact, and in this state the distinction between principals and accessories is abolished. In other words, I’ll be holding you for murder.”
“That’s in the event this gun is not the fatal gun.”
“That’s right.”
“But suppose it is the fatal gun?”
Hamilton Burger said, “Then I’ll hold you for...”
“Yes?” Mason prompted, as Burger’s voice trailed off.
“Before I go any further,” Burger said, “I’m here to take an official statement from you as to why this gun wasn’t available earlier in the day.”
“All right, I’ll tell you,” Mason said. “Adelle Hastings told the story of the stolen purse and the gun to Simley Beason, who is the office manager for the Garvin Hastings Enterprises. Beason very unwisely felt that the gun might be incriminating evidence and he might help Adelle Hastings by removing that gun.
“He came to my office at six o’clock this morning, convinced a charwoman who was cleaning the office at that time that he was Perry Mason. He was carrying a brief case. He walked brazenly into the office, opened the drawer in my desk, took out the gun and took it to the offices of the Hastings Enterprises.
“He has a locker there. He wrapped the gun in tissue paper. Then wrapped it with brown paper. He typed out a label identifying the contents as being a gun that had been taken from the office of Perry Mason, put his signature on it, taped it to the paper and sealed the paper with tape.”
“Why did he do all that?” Tragg asked.
“Because he wanted to protect Adelle Hastings and he was afraid that there was some possibility the claim might be made she had been the one who had taken the gun.”
Tragg and Burger exchanged glances.
“Go ahead,” Burger said. “You always have an almost plausible story. I’m not believing, but I’m listening.”
“I knew that somebody had stolen the gun,” Mason said. “I felt it had to be someone who knew where to look for the gun. I felt that probably the only time it could have been stolen was around the time the cleaning women came to the offices in the morning. I had Paul Drake look up the register of people coming to the office. I got a description of the one man who had been here. I ran down a few other clues and they pointed to Simley Beason. I asked him to come to the office, charged him with the theft and had the charwoman come in here to identify him. She identified him. He broke down and confessed.”
“All right, tell us about the gun,” Burger said wearily. “Something seems to tell me this is all part of the same old run-around, only now you’ve given it a new twist.”
“So,” Mason said, “Simley Beason telephoned his secretary, Rosalie Blackburn, told her to go to his desk, get the key to his locker, open the locker, take the golf clubs out of his bag, turn the golf bag upside down, take the package that was in the bottom of the golf bag and bring it up here.”
“Go ahead,” Burger said. “This is your show. Keep talking.”
“When the secretary came here,” Mason said, “she gave the package to Beason, but pointed out that the package was not sealed when she found it. The paper had been cut with a very sharp knife or perhaps a razor blade. Apparently the person doing that had unwrapped the paper, looked at the gun, then replaced the package in the bottom of the golf bag.”
Burger’s eyes narrowed.
“Now then,” Mason said, “I’m giving you all the information that I have on the subject. As soon as I had the weapon again in my possession I put it in the desk drawer, being careful not to touch it with my hands and leave any fingerprints, and called Lieutenant Tragg.”
“That’s your story?” Tragg asked.
“That’s it,” Mason said.
Tragg again exchanged glances with Burger.
Burger’s face darkened. “You can’t get away with this, Perry,” he said.
“I’m not getting away with anything. You wanted my story. I told it to you.”
Burger said, “This is all very clever. When we try Adelle Hastings for murder and try to introduce this gun in evidence you’re going to claim that we can’t prove it was the same gun that was in Adelle’s purse. You’ve told this cock-and-bull story with the idea that you’ll force us to put this man, Beason, on the stand, then this secretary of his. Then you’ll claim that the package was tampered with, you’ll claim that anyone had a chance to substitute guns and that it can’t be shown this was the gun that Adelle Hastings had in her purse.”