Judge Ashurst glanced at Jackson Newburn.
“The Court will make that order,” he said. “The Court considers this matter of the greatest importance and—”
“It isn’t necessary,” Newburn blurted.
“What?” Judge Ashurst exclaimed. “Come up here. Take that witness chair. You may step aside, Mr. Redfield.”
“Mr. Mason is right,” Newburn said, his voice lowered so that it was with difficulty the Court could distinguish the words. He eased himself into the witness chair. “I got the shot in that bottle from the glass containers at the Wildcat Club. They have a writing room in which there are half a dozen writing desks. Those desks have glass inkwells and there is a container of shot on each one of those desks, shot in which the pens are kept. I... I took the shot from there.”
“Now just a minute,” Judge Ashurst said. “Let’s see if I understand you correctly. Then you are the one who put the shot from these containers which you got at that club in this bottle marked Exhibit A?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“The bottle containing the cyanide?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“And what did you do with that bottle?”
“I threw it out in the lake.”
“You are now referring to the bottle containing the cyanide, not the bottle containing the sugar substitute?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“And you did tell Perry Mason you threw a bottle of sugar substitute pills in the lake?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Judge Ashurst said angrily, “I order this man into custody for deliberate perjury and suspicion of murder. I direct that the police go out to this club and impound this evidence immediately.”
Mason said, “Perhaps the Court would like to ask this witness where he got the cyanide.”
Judge Ashurst turned angrily to Newburn. “Now,” he said, “you are very plainly guilty of flagrant perjury in this court. You may well be accused of murder. Anything you say can be used against you. I want you to understand that. You have the right to consult an attorney if you desire. Now then, where did you get the cyanide that you put in that bottle?”
“From the laboratory.”
“What laboratory?”
“The laboratory where John Locke works.”
“And how did you get in there?”
“That laboratory is doing a job for an oil company in which I have an interest — in fact, I was instrumental in getting the job for Mr. Locke’s company.”
“Then,” Judge Ashurst said, “you administered the cyanide which may have been the cause of Mosher Higley’s death?”
Newburn looked at the judge with panic in his eyes and shook his head.
“You did not?”
“No, I didn’t,” Newburn said, “but God knows how I’ll ever prove it now.”
“Why did you do all this?” Mason asked, his voice kindly.
“I did it to protect my wife.”
“In what way?” Mason asked.
“At the time I did it I was convinced this so-called confession of Nadine was simply a pipe dream, the hallucination of a disordered mind which was produced by drugs, but I knew that my wife — I thought that my wife had killed him and I was trying to protect her.”
“And how were you trying to protect her?” Mason asked.
“As soon as I knew that Nadine had made that confession on the tape recording, I knew that the police would go out to search Twomby’s Lake. If they didn’t find any cyanide in a bottle filled with shot it would tend to make it appear that the confession was simply a... well, a pipe dream. But if they did, then they would have this confession authenticated.”
“So what did you do?” Mason asked.
“The cyanide tablets I had had in my house for some time,” Newburn said. “I got them some four weeks before Mosher Higley’s death. We had been troubled with dogs that were tearing up my wife’s flower beds. My wife determined to poison them. I pointed out to her that it was a crime to poison dogs but she was bitterly vindictive. I told her that if she tried to buy poison, that poison would be traced and... well, we discussed it and finally I agreed to get her the cyanide tablets from the jar that I knew was in the laboratory where John Locke worked.
“I was making frequent trips to that laboratory at that time because the company which employed Locke was making a chemical analysis of certain alloys which were being used in some of my oil drilling operations.”
“And you naturally assumed that your wife had used some of this cyanide to poison Mosher Higley?” Mason asked.
Newburn nodded.
“And so you felt that if the police did search the lake and did find the bottle just as described by Nadine, it would remove suspicion from your wife?”
“Everything would have been all right if it hadn’t been for that crazy idea of Nadine’s,” Newburn said, “but once she got that idea I knew that they would exhume Mosher Higley’s body. I didn’t know enough about the effect of the embalming fluid to know that it would destroy the evidences of the cyanide, so I thought that they would trace the cyanide through me to my wife and... well, she had poisoned two of the dogs and the neighbors were already suspicious and— You can see my situation.”
“So then when I talked with you,” Mason said, “being afraid that it might appear that you had thrown one of the bottles into Twomby’s Lake, you tried to clear yourself by stating you had thrown the bottle that contained the sugar substitute?”
“That’s right.”
“Now then, what made you think that your wife had poisoned Mosher Higley?”
“I thought she had at the time. Now I know that she did not.”
“You know what?” Judge Ashurst demanded.
“I know that she did not.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she told me so.”
Hamilton Burger said wearily, “Your Honor, here we go again. This is another ring-around-a-rosy, another dramatic jiggling and juggling of evidence and witnesses—”
“Sit down and keep quiet,” Judge Ashurst said. “I’m doing this. I don’t mean to be discourteous, but we’re rapidly approaching a solution here. It may not be the solution you want, but it’s the solution the Court wants. Now, don’t interrupt.”
Judge Ashurst turned to Newburn.
“Now, you say that you know your wife didn’t poison Higley because she told you so?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“But what first made you think she had poisoned Mosher Higley?”
“Because she was there just before his death. I know that she went downstairs to the dining room while the chocolate was being mixed. She looked around for Nadine and couldn’t find her. She called for Cap’n Hugo and he wasn’t around. She could easily have gone on to the kitchen and seen the double boiler in which the chocolate was being melted, and I... I naturally assumed she had done that and had put in the poison.”
“Why?”
“Because we had discovered something that was most disturbing.”
“What?”
“We had discovered that Mosher Higley had murdered his partner some years ago, and that partner was Nadine Farr’s father.
“Nadine had uncovered the situation and had demanded certain things from Mosher Higley. He had acquiesced because... because he was actually guilty, and he confessed to Sue.”