Mason smiled. “I never remember anything a client says to me, Dangerfield.”
“Well, the point is,” Dangerfield went on, “that you explained to him what a dangerous idea that was, and there was a little more conversation back and forth along those lines. Well, one of the bar boys, a college lad working at the Springs on his vacation, happened to overhear that conversation. There was a screen behind the table where you were sitting, and this boy was standing back of that screen polishing a window.”
Mason said, “Very interesting. I take it the boy knew Witherspoon?”
“Yes, he recognized him.”
“Very, very interesting, and how did you learn ail this?”
“From the district attorney. The district attorney found out that my wife and I were in town, and subpoenaed us as witnesses. He’s been talking with me about that old case.”
“What did you tell him?” Mason asked.
Dangerfield said, “That’s just the point. I kept telling him that I didn’t see why that should enter into the present case and that there was no use digging up old memories.”
“He’s talked with both you and your wife?”
“No. So far, he’s talked only with me. He’s going to call my wife this evening. I... well, I wanted to see what could be done. I thought perhaps we could take the position that it was making her too nervous — get a doctor to give his certificate or something of that sort. You’re a lawyer. You’ll know how those things are arranged.”
“They aren’t supposed to be arranged,” Mason said.
“I know, but they are just the same.”
“Why doesn’t your wife want to give a statement?”
“We can’t see any use in reopening that old case.”
“Why?”
“Hang it,” Dangerfield blurted, “you know why. My wife told you. She knew that David Latwell had a gun in his pocket when he went to the factory the day he was murdered... And she kept silent about it — all through the case.”
“Did she ever lie about that?”
“No. No one ever asked her. She simply didn’t volunteer the information.”
“So she told you about that?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Highly interesting,” Mason said. “Won’t it be peculiar if, as a result of trying Witherspoon for murder in 1942, we clear up a murder that was committed in 1924?”
“You can’t clear it up,” Dangerfield said. “You might make it appear that a verdict of manslaughter could have been returned. That won’t clear anything up.”
“Or make it appear justifiable self-defense.”
“You can’t bring Adams back to life,” Dangerfield said. “And you might make my wife commit perjury.”
“How?”
“She’ll never admit knowing about that gun when she gets on the witness stand,” Dangerfield said. “She says that if she can meet with you, Witherspoon and Marvin Adams, she’ll tell exactly what happened, but that she’s not going to be held up to public scorn as a woman whose, well, you know.”
“And so?” Mason asked.
“So she sent me to tell you that if you want that old case cleared up, it will have to be done in a private conference. That if she ever takes the stand, she’ll deny the whole business. It’s up to you to keep her from being called.”
Mason pursed his lips. “Will she tell the district attorney anything about the gun?”
“No, of course not.”
Mason pushed his hands down deep in his pockets. “I’ll think it over,” he promised.
Chapter 19
It was a new experience for Perry Mason to sit in a courtroom as a spectator — and it was a trying experience.
The expert bronco-buster who sits in the grandstand at a rodeo instinctively sways his body as he watches another rider trying to stay on a bucking horse. The expert pinball-machine player, standing as a spectator, watching another send the metal balls roiling down the inclined plane, will instinctively push with his own body as the balls hit the cushioned bumpers.
Perry Mason, sitting in the front row of the spectators’ chairs in the crowded courtroom at El Templo. listening to the preliminary hearing of the case of The People of the State of California versus John L. Witherspoon, at times would lean forward in his chair as though about to ask a question. When some objection was made, he would grip the arms of the chair as though about to get up and argue the matter.
However, he managed to sit silently through the course of the long day’s trial while the evidence presented by the district attorney piled up against the defendant.
Witnesses testified that Roland Burr had been a guest at the defendant’s house. It was made to appear that the defendant had invited Burr to his house after a casual conversation during which it had developed that they shared a number of hobbies, among which were fly-casting and photography. It was also made to appear that when they had first met in the lobby of the hotel, Witherspoon had not issued his invitation until after Mrs. Burr had appeared, and been introduced.
The figure of Mrs. Burr began, bit by bit, to assume a more important place in the trial.
Servants testified that Roland Burr made frequent trips to town. Upon most of these trips, his wife would accompany him. But there were times when Burr was in his room that Mrs. Burr would meet Witherspoon in the corridors, or in the patio. Witherspoon’s Mexican servants testified with obvious reluctance, but the story which they told built up a damning case of motivation, indicating a growing intimacy between the defendant, Witherspoon, and Mrs. Burr, the wife of the man who had been killed.
Then came more evidence of stolen kisses, little intimacies, which, under the questioning of the district attorney, began to assume sinister proportions — figures entwined in hallways, low voices at night by the swimming pool, beneath the stars. Bit by bit, he brought out every “clandestine caress,” every “surreptitious sexual advance.”
With cold, deadly precision, the district attorney, having proved motivation, began to prove opportunity. The doctor who had been attending Burr testified to the condition of the patient, that it was obviously impossible for the patient to have left the bed, that not only was his leg in a cast, but it was elevated and held in place by a weight which was suspended from a pulley in the ceiling, one end of a rope being on this weight, the other fastened securely to the patient’s leg. Photographs were introduced showing the position of the deadly glass of acid from which the cyanide fumes had been generated. It had been placed some ten feet from the bed, on a table which had originally been designed as a stand for a typewriter but which had been introduced into the room as a medicine table at the suggestion of John L. Witherspoon himself when the deceased had broken his leg.
The doctor also testified that when he and Mrs. Burr had left the house, the last request of the decedent had been that Witherspoon get his fishing rod, which the deceased said he had left in Witherspoon’s study.
Servants testified that no one but Witherspoon had a key to that study, that, at the time the murder must have been committed, Witherspoon, the servants, and the decedent were alone in the house. The district attorney introduced evidence about the dogs, showing that it would have been impossible for any stranger to have entered the house while the trained police dogs were patrolling the grounds.
The fishing rod which the deceased was holding in his hand when the body was discovered was conclusively identified as being the particular fishing rod which Burr had asked Witherspoon to get for him. Photographs were introduced showing the body as it had been discovered. Two joints of the fishing rod had been put together. The decedent was holding the tip of the rod in his left hand. The right hand was gripped about the ferrule of the second joint. The entire position of the body indicated that the man had been in the act of placing the last joint in the rod when he had been overcome by the fumes of the gas.