The telephone on Della Street’s secretarial desk rang and she said, “Hello... yes, Gertie... Right away?... Is it that important?... Very well, I’ll be right out.”
She glanced meaningly at Perry Mason, said, “If you’ll excuse me a moment,” and hurried through the door to the outer office.
Mason regarded his visitor quizzically. “You’re asking me to take you on trust.”
“Don’t you have to take all your clients on trust?”
“Not entirely. I usually know with whom I am dealing and what the score is.”
“And you are usually retained to defend some person who is accused of crime?”
“Quite frequently.”
“And how do you verify the fact that your client is telling you the truth?”
Mason smiled. “You have a point there,” he admitted.
“You take them on trust,” she said.
“Not entirely,” Mason replied. “Any person accused of crime, whether guilty or innocent, is entitled to a defense. He’s entitled to his day in court. I try to give him legal representation.”
“But you try to make that representation effective so that you prove his innocence.”
Mason thought for a moment, then, choosing his words carefully, said, “I try to make my representation effective. I’ll go that far.”
Della Street appeared from the outer office, motioned to Perry Mason, and walked through the door into the law library.
Mason said, “You’ll have to excuse me just a moment. We seem to have some rather important matter demanding immediate consideration.”
“Certainly,” she said.
Mason swung around in his swivel chair, got up, walked around the desk, gave his visitor a reassuring smile, said, “I’m satisfied it will only be a moment,” then opened the door to the law library.
“What’s the excitement?” he asked Della Street when he had closed the door.
“Gertie, at the switchboard,” Della said.
“What about her?”
“I hardly know,” she said. “You know Gertie, she’s an incurable romantic. Give her a button and she’ll sew a vest on it every time, and sometimes I think she even uses an imaginary button.”
Mason nodded.
“She observed something about our visitor in there, or thinks she did, and perhaps you’d better talk with her.”
“Can’t you tell me what it is?”
“Of course I can,” Della said, “but I can’t evaluate what Gertie’s saying the way you can — it makes quite a story.”
“All right,” Mason said, “let’s go see what it is.”
He took Della’s arm, escorted her through the door which opened from the law library into the entrance room.
Gertie, at the switchboard, was sitting on the edge of her chair, her eyes wide with excitement, her jaws chewing gum in a frantic tempo, indicative of her inner nervousness.
Gertie had an insatiable curiosity. She always wanted to know the background of Mason’s clients and, quite frequently, vested them with an imaginary environment which, at times, was surprisingly accurate.
Considerably overweight, Gertie was always going on a diet “next week” or “after the holidays” or “as soon as I return from my vacation.”
Despite the fact there was no one in the office, Gertie beckoned Mr. Mason over to her desk and lowered her voice so that it was barely audible.
“That young woman who went in your office,” she said.
“Yes, yes,” Mason said, “what about it, Gertie? Did you notice something about her?”
“Did I notice something about her!” Gertie said, quite obviously savoring the fact that she had for the moment become the center of attention. “I’ll say I did!”
“Well,” Della said impatiently, “tell it to Mr. Mason, Gertie. After all, she’s waiting in there.”
Gertie said, “you noticed that black bag she’s carrying with her, that she hangs on to so tightly?”
“I didn’t notice her hanging on to it so tightly,” Mason said, “but she has both a black bag and a hand purse with her.”
“It’s a kind of cosmetics and overnight bag,” Della said. “In a bag of that type there’s a mirror on the inside of the lid when you open it.”
“And cosmetics, creams, and hairbrushes on the inside?” Mason asked.
“Not in this bag,” Gertie asserted vehemently. “It’s packed, jammed solid with hundred-dollar bills, all neatly packaged.”
“What!” Mason exclaimed.
Gertie nodded solemnly, obviously enjoying Mason’s surprise.
“How do you know, Gertie?” Della Street asked. “Tell him that.”
“Well,” Gertie said, “she wanted to get something out of the bag or put something in it. Anyway, she opened it, but it was the way she opened it that attracted my attention.”
“In what way?” Mason asked.
“She turned around in her chair, her back toward me, so that I couldn’t see what she was doing.”
Mason smiled and said, “And the minute she did that you craned your neck, trying to see what it was she was concealing.”
“Well,” Gertie said, “I guess everyone has a natural curiosity, and after all, Mr. Mason, you want me to find out about the clients that come to see you.”
“I was just making a comment,” Mason said. “Don’t let it worry you, Gertie. What did you see?”
“Well, what she didn’t realize,” Gertie said, “was that just as soon as she turned her back and opened the lid of the bag, the mirror at a certain angle reflected the contents of that bag so that I could look right into the mirror and see what was inside.”
Mason said, “Tell me exactly what you saw.”
“The whole inside of that black bag,” Gertie said impressively, “was just one mass of hundred-dollar bills, all neatly stacked in piles just as they came from the bank.”
“And you saw that in the mirror?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you?”
“I was here at my desk by the telephone switchboard.”
“And where was the young woman?”
“Sitting over there.”
“All the way across the office,” Mason commented.
“That’s right. But I saw what I saw.”
“You say she turned her back to you?”
“Yes, very ostentatiously.”
“And then opened the bag?”
“Yes.”
“And when the lid reached an angle of approximately forty-five degrees you could see the contents of the bag?”
“That’s right.”
“Now, did she very carefully hold the lid in that position so you could continue to look at the contents, or did she open it the rest of the way so the lid was straight up?”
Gertie thought for a moment and said, “When I stop to think of it, I guess she opened it the rest of the way, but I was so startled at what I saw that I didn’t realize she had opened it the rest of the way until you asked me just now.”
“Then she held the lid which contained the mirror for some appreciable interval at the angle of forty-five degrees so you were able to see the contents?”
“I guess she must have, Mr. Mason,” Gertie conceded. “I didn’t think this all out until— My heavens, you cross-examine a person so!”
“I don’t want to cross-examine you,” Mason said, “but I do want to find out what happened. You must admit that if she opened the lid of that bag and then held the mirror at an angle so that you could see the contents, she must have been rather anxious for you to see what was in the bag rather than trying to conceal it from you.”
“I never thought of that,” Gertie admitted.
“I’m thinking of it,” Mason said thoughtfully.