“Sue is your wife?”
“Yes.”
“When was that confession made?”
“The day before his death.”
“So,” Judge Ashurst said, “you and your wife felt that as a result of this confession your inheritance was in jeopardy, that because of this murder Nadine Farr had a claim upon him?”
“It was more than that,” Newburn said. “After his partner’s death, Higley manipulated the affairs of the partnership so that he cheated his partner’s estate. You see, Rose Farr, Nadine’s mother, was the real brains of the partnership. She was the secretary-manager-accountant-bookkeeper and general live wire. She had all of the facts at her finger tips. After the partner’s death, Rose Farr was pregnant and—”
“Now you’re getting into rather an involved situation here,” Judge Ashurst said. “Let’s just boil it down to something simple.”
“Well, Mosher Higley had murdered his partner and had taken the money. The partner left a will leaving all of his share in the partnership to Rose Farr, Nadine’s mother. Under the circumstances, if Nadine should employ a lawyer claiming that the money was held by Higley in involuntary trust for her... well, it was a terrible situation.
“Nadine as yet didn’t know all the facts, that is, she surmised them but she didn’t have any proof. Mosher Higley was facing death. He knew he didn’t have long to live and... he was frightened. Well, he confessed to us.”
“To your wife or to you?”
“To both of us.”
“And what did you do?”
“We told him not to do anything until we had seen a lawyer.”
“And did you see a lawyer?”
“No. His death... well, you can understand, if he died of cyanide poisoning and — His death was exceedingly opportune. Some of that land is potentially valuable as oil land. In fact, I may say it is very, very valuable.”
“And because of that fact you thought that your wife had killed him?”
“That... that and what she said.”
“What did she say?”
“Sue hates Nadine. She said that this thing couldn’t go on, that she wasn’t going to permit Nadine to step in and jerk the rug out from under us. We talked about things that could happen and she said how nice it would be if Mosher Higley would conveniently die before— Then we discussed — that is, she discussed the cyanide. She asked me what would happen if some cyanide pills were placed in his chocolate instead of — Oh, Your Honor, it’s just one of those messes. I... I’m trapped by events, but... but Sue tells me she didn’t do it.”
“I see,” Judge Ashurst said sarcastically. “You and your wife, knowing that Mosher Higley was a murderer and an embezzler, knowing that he had defrauded Nadine Farr out of her inheritance, were not only interested in keeping the truth from coming out, but you discussed how much poison would be necessary to give him to see that he conveniently died before any action could be taken.”
“I... we talked about it... not that cold-bloodedly, just sort of — it was just a possibility we explored.”
“And you assumed your wife had killed him. Now, notwithstanding the depths of depravity disclosed by your testimony, simply because your wife tells you that she didn’t kill him, you accept her word and feel that she is innocent?”
“If Sue had done it she would have told me,” Newburn said.
“And on that note of complete and utter moral degradation,” Judge Ashurst snapped, “this court is going to adjourn. The Court orders this witness into custody and suggests that the police should immediately arrest Sue Newburn, the wife of this witness, and charge her and her husband with murder.
“The court will recess until four o’clock. The jury is going to be instructed to return a directed verdict of not guilty when court reconvenes. In the meantime court is adjourned.”
Judge Ashurst banged his gavel vindictively.
Chapter Seventeen
The adjournment of court left the audience in a state of confusion which, as one newspaper subsequently stated, “broke all records for pandemonium even in a Perry Mason case.”
Hamilton Burger, dazed, chagrined and angry, pushed his way from the courtroom. Jackson Newburn and his wife, in custody, were escorted toward the jail, Jackson Newburn begging his wife to tell the truth. Sue Newburn, tight-lipped and angry, was heard to say, “You weak-kneed bounder! You welsher! You double-crossing little rat. You’ll never get another cent of my money as long as you live,” and Newburn, properly humble but still conscious of the main issue, said, “Honey, you haven’t any money, and the hell of it is you aren’t going to have any.”
Della Street and Paul Drake huddled around Mason and the defendant, congratulating them. Nadine Farr, laughing and crying by turns, was completely hysterical.
A policewoman said, “I’m sorry but I’m going to have to keep her in custody. The Court didn’t formally release the defendant as yet.”
Mason patted Nadine on the back. “Everything’s okay now, Nadine. Just relax.”
She nodded, cried, wiped the tears away, started to laugh, then impulsively threw her arms around Mason, drew herself close up against him and kissed him.
Newspaper photographers, watching for some catchy bit of action, shot off a whole series of flash bulbs.
One photographer who had missed out said, “Would you mind doing that again, miss? I didn’t get it.”
“Not at all,” she said, and promptly accommodated him.
The policewoman, smiling indulgently, waited until the photograph had been taken, then led Nadine away.
“Well,” asked Paul Drake, “what do you make of it now? What’s Hamilton Burger going to do?”
“Lord knows,” Mason said. “But the interesting thing is that ninety-nine chances out of a hundred he’s going to do the wrong thing.”
“In what way?”
“He’s going to try to prosecute Sue Newburn for murder.”
“Well?”
“And this time,” Mason said, “he’s got no confession. He can’t prove the corpus delicti, he can’t prove that Mosher Higley died from cyanide of potassium poisoning, and he can’t prove how it was administered.”
“Of course Jackson Newburn’s testimony will—”
Mason chuckled.
“What’s the matter?” Drake asked.
“Jackson Newburn’s testimony won’t be admissible,” Mason said. “A husband can’t testify against his wife in a proceeding of that sort unless the wife consents. So now we can enjoy the spectacle of Hamilton Burger, after having been repeatedly described in the papers as ‘beaming,’ running around in a hopeless trap like a puppy chasing his tail and not being able to catch it.”
“But do you mean to say she can get away with deliberate murder without being caught?” Drake asked.
“Who said she committed deliberate murder?”
“Well, didn’t she?”
“You may have overlooked the significant thing about the testimony Newburn gave,” Mason said.
“I thought I got it all.”
“You missed the significant part.”
“What was that?”
“Remember,” Mason said, “that when John Locke went out to the house to try and get the cyanide pills, he sent Cap’n Hugo to Nadine’s bedroom to get the bottle. Cap’n Hugo brought it to him. He gave it to John Locke. There were four tablets short. It has never been disclosed what happened to those four tablets.”
“Good heavens, Chief,” Della Street said, “you don’t for a moment suppose that Nadine Fair really did poison him and—”
“You forget that Nadine Farr was interrogated under truth serum,” Mason said. “She was sufficiently drugged so that Dr. Denair got a good reaction. She told the story as she knows it.”