“Now, I submit, gentlemen, here was Hayward Small, a friend and acquaintance of Moffgat, the lawyer, a virtual stranger to James Bradisson, and to his mother, Mrs. Bradisson. In the early part of January, nineteen hundred and forty-two, Mrs. Banning Clarke dies. A will is offered for probate leaving all of her property to her mother and her brother, and intimating that it is no great amount of property. Almost immediately afterwards, Moffgat and Hayward become very favored personages. The lawyer becomes a stockholder in the company. Hayward Small becomes a mining broker, though he has never sold any mines before. Now, however, he sells mines right and left — and sells them all at fancy prices to the corporation which now consists largely of Mrs. Bradisson and her son James. What’s the answer?”
“You’re crazy,” Hayward Small said. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but you’re all wet.”
“Could it possibly be,” Mason said, “that Small was one of the witnesses to a will made at a later date, and that — with the connivance of all parties concerned — this will was suppressed?”
“You’re making a grave charge,” Greggory blurted.
“Certainly I am,” Mason said, eyeing him coldly. “Perhaps, Sheriff, you have some other logical explanation of what happened.”
“That’s a lie,” Small said. “Nothing like that happened.”
“And,” Mason went on, turning to the District Attorney, “that, Mr. District Attorney, would account for Bradisson’s anxiety to see that the crime was pinned on Hayward Small. It would account for the testimony given by Bradisson and his mother that is so damaging to this witness. If he had been blackmailing them, and if they could get him convicted of murder, without appearing to do so, it would—”
“But,” the sheriff all but shouted at the District Attorney, “there wasn’t any such investigation. Bradisson never made any such statement.”
Topham turned reproachful eyes on the sheriff. It was quite apparent that he didn’t believe him either.
“Call Bradisson in. Ask him,” the sheriff interpolated angrily.
Mason’s patronizing, superior smile disposed of that suggestion without words.
Small blurted abruptly, “Listen, I’m not going to be framed with any murder rap. If Jim Bradisson is trying to push off anything on me, I’ll...”
“You’ll what?” Mason asked as Small became abruptly silent.
“I won’t stand for it, that’s all.”
Mason said, “Don’t worry, Small. You don’t stand a chance. The sheriff in this county is one of the old-fashioned type who believes in acting on secret tips, on keeping his witnesses in the background. You’ve seen the extent to which he’s gone to convince you that Bradisson didn’t do anything of the sort. You won’t ever see Bradisson’s hand in the matter until after you’re standing up in front of the judge to hear the death sentence.”
Greggory said, “I’m not going to stand for—”
“Please!” Topham interrupted.
Greggory checked himself under the domination of the District Attorney’s tired eyes.
“Now,” Mason went on, “personally I’d be very much inclined to doubt Bradisson’s statement. It doesn’t sound logical to me. I see no reason why Hayward Small should have put arsenic in the sugar bowl. On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons why Bradisson should have put the poison in the sugar. Look at the evidence impartially, gentlemen. Bradisson and his mother apparently developed symptoms of arsenic poisoning. It turns out that this poisoning was self-induced, caused by taking ipecac. Need we look far for a reason? They intended that on the next night Hayward Small should die of arsenic poisoning. Then you’d have a baffling mystery in which the real poisoners would never be suspected because they themselves had apparently been first on the list of victims. A person who is blackmailing doesn’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, but the person who is being blackmailed always wants to kill the blackmailer.”
Topham glanced speculatively at Small, almost imperceptibly nodded his head.
Small said, “You’re making all this up. You’re just talking.”
“But,” Mason went on, “the scheme went astray because that night Hayward Small didn’t go over and help himself to his usual evening cup of tea. The reason he didn’t was that he was planning to run away with Mrs. Sims’ daughter, and he knew that Mrs. Sims didn’t approve of him. He was somewhat afraid of her uncanny intuitive powers, her sharp tongue, and her shrewd eyes. So he kept on the outskirts, leaving Dorina to put the note under the sugar bowl. That upset Bradisson’s plans.
“Now, we can almost determine the exact time when that arsenic was placed in the sugar. It was placed in there after Della Street, Banning Clarke, Mrs. Sims and I had had our first cups of tea, because Mrs. Sims poured herself a fourth cup of tea, was the fourth to take sugar from the bowl — And she felt no ill effects. Then the persons who had been at that stockholders’ meeting entered the room. There was, of course, a certain amount of confusion with people passing back and forth around the table. Then Banning Clarke had a second cup of tea and put sugar in it. At that time he got the largest dose of poison, showing that the arsenic was at that time on top of the sugar, so that he got nearly all of it... Then, Della Street and I had a second cup, had sugar, and received a relatively small amount of arsenic. Now then, gentlemen, I submit that Bradisson was trying to poison Hayward Small, counting on Small’s habit of usually having a cup of tea when he entered the kitchen. Failing in his attempt at poison, Bradisson now tries to accomplish his end by making a highly confidential statement to the sheriff that he knows Hayward Small is guilty, and if the sheriff will get Small to trial on other evidence, Bradisson will be the surprise witness who sends him to the death cell.”
Mason stopped talking, apparently centering his attention entirely on the District Attorney, paying no more attention to Harvey Small than if Small had been a mere casual spectator.
“How does that sound, Mr. District Attorney?”
“It sounds very, very logical,” the District Attorney said.
Small blurted out, “The lawyer’s right. Damn Jim Bradisson for a double-crossing back-stabber. I should have known he’d try something like that. All right, damn him. Now I’ll do a little talking, and I’ll tell the truth.”
“That,” Mason said, “is very much better.”
Small said, “I knew Moffgat, used to hang around his office a bit. I dug up a little business for him. Nothing like an ambulance chaser, you understand, but just a friend of his who brought in business, and he did favors for me. I happened to be in his office one Friday morning. I’ll never forget the date — the fifth of December, nineteen hundred and forty-one. The reason I’ll never forget is that we all know what happened on December seventh. Well, I was waiting in the outer office to see Moffgat. Mrs. Banning Clarke was in the office with him. I’d never met her. Moffgat opened the door of the private office and looked out to see who was in the outer office. He saw me sitting there and asked if I’d mind stepping in and acting as witness to a will.”
“And you did so?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened subsequently?”
“You know.”
“You don’t know what was in that will?”
“No. I only know that along in January I read about Mrs. Clarke’s dying and about a will’s being offered for probate. I asked Moffgat if I didn’t have to testify as a witness to that will, and he acted so strangely about it I began to do a little thinking. I went and looked up the records. Well, it didn’t take me long to figure out what had happened when I saw that they were probating a will dated a year or so earlier and signed before two other witnesses. — I just climbed aboard the gravy train, that’s all. Nothing crude, you understand, but I made myself a broker of mining properties. Then I called on Bradisson, mentioned casually that I had known his sister, that I’d been a witness to a will she’d made very shortly before she died. That was all I needed to say. After that, when I suggested that the mining company should buy one of my properties at the price I put on it, the money was forthcoming. I didn’t run a willing horse to death, you understand, but I saw to it that my business was reasonably profitable.”