“And that’s one of the things that you’re going to have to take into consideration. After all, she and Loring Carson were still married. There had been a divorce decree but it was only an interlocutory judgment. The interlocutory would have to run for six months before there would be a final dissolution of the marriage. The prosecution will use my love for her as a motivation for the murder of her husband.”
“When did all this happen?” Mason asked.
“What?”
“Your falling in love with her.”
“Almost from the first time I saw her.”
“That, as I remember it,” Mason said, “was when she was in a very abbreviated bikini.”
“All right, it was,” Eden said. “And she seemed — well, there was something essentially feminine about her, a daintiness, a grace, a— She was a, vision of loveliness.”
“You were lonely,” Mason said. “You’d been a widower, you’d been living by yourself. You came to your house, found a fence running through it. You opened the door, went into the house trying to find what in the world had happened, and there you found this woman, this vision of loveliness, as you call it. Then a little later you saw her by the pool, taking a sunbath in a bikini.
“She had quite evidently planned the whole thing: the setting, the discovery, the bikini she was wearing — probably even the lighting effect. She knew about when you were due back. She wanted you to—”
“All right, suppose she did,” Eden said. “You know what she wanted at the time. She wanted me to file suit against Loring Carson. She wanted to try and discover some of the hidden assets which she was satisfied he’d been concealing in preparation for the divorce action. She has told me all about it. She intended to get me to make a pass at her and then take me before the court on contempt proceedings — in case I didn’t file suit against Loring Carson.”
“All right,” Mason said, “go on. Tell me about the development of this emotional storm.”
“The next morning she was nice to me. She handed me coffee through the fence and...”
“And you started to get acquainted?” Mason asked.
“Yes. It was just a start.”
“Then what?”
“Then you came out and she staged that lingerie show and hang it, Mason, the thing appealed to me. The gameness of the woman; her ingenuity; the way she was fighting back with the cards stacked against her. I was there in the house and after the party was over — well, she pulled back those silly curtains and I was in the living room and I looked at her and suddenly started laughing, and then she began to laugh and then we sat and visited for — well, it was a long time.”
“How long?”
“Until the small hours of the morning, if you want to know.”
“And you knew you were in love with her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her so?”
“Now look. Mason, that has nothing to do with the case; but as a matter of fact, I...”
“Did you or didn’t you?” Mason asked, as Eden hesitated.
“I didn’t,” Eden said, “but she could tell that I was tremendously interested in her and I realized that I was drawing out a side of her that had lain dormant for a long time. She had been the victim of a terribly unhappy marriage. She had been married to a louse, a heel, a—”
Mason held up a warning hand. “The man is dead. You’re going to be accused of murdering him. Don’t cultivate that type of thinking.”
“I don’t care,” Eden said. “That’s what he was. He was a louse. Here he was, married to Vivian, and he was neglecting her, running around with another woman and, in place of going to her frankly and telling her what had happened and that he wanted his freedom and trying to give her an opportunity to salvage something of her life, making a fair division of the community property and doing what should have been done under the circumstances, he started trying to cheat her out of what was rightfully hers. He hired a detective under such circumstances that — well, it may have been an innocent mistake, but I’m inclined to think he deliberately framed the whole business so he would have some excuse for blackening her name in the press, ruining her reputation. Then he started concealing assets, juggling things around so that no one could tell anything about his net worth and—”
“All right,” Mason said, “all right. It’s plain to be seen that you’re looking at the entire situation through her eyes.”
“I am,” Eden said, “because her eyes have the true perspective.”
Mason said, “When the prosecution gets all that it will have a swell motive. Now I want to know what happened. I want to have it so you can go on the witness stand if you have to and—”
“Let me tell you this, Mason,” Morley Eden said, “please believe me. I tried something and it didn’t work. I thought I could outsmart the police. It was perhaps the most ghastly decision I ever made in my life. It’s got us both in a situation where we’ll be crucified by what we have done.
“Now then, so far it’s only circumstantial evidence. I understand a good lawyer can beat a case of circumstantial evidence.”
“It depends on the evidence,” Mason said.
“Well, there’s always a chance as long as the case is based on circumstantial evidence alone, but the minute we go on the stand and tell our story we’re crucified. You’d never stand a chance of getting us off then. No lawyer would.”
Mason said, “I’ll do this much, Eden. I’ll stay with the case until I find out what the evidence is against you. If at the close of the prosecution’s case I decide that you’re going to have to go on the stand, then you’re going to have to tell me your story and then you’re going to have to go on the witness stand.”
“Will there be time for all that?”
“I’ll be able to have a brief adjournment from the time the prosecution finishes with its case and the time we have to start putting on the defense,” Mason said. “I’ll take your case with the understanding that if, at that time, I think the case against you is too strong to be knocked out of court without your testimony, you’ll then tell me exactly what happened.”
“All right,” Eden said, “it’s a deal.”
He reached out and gave the lawyer his hand. “The only thing is,” he said, “you’re to go up to that point simply looking for weak places in the prosecution’s case and not feeling in the back of your mind that you’re going to rely on what Vivian and I can tell you.”
Mason shook hands. “It’s your funeral,” he said. “And I mean that literally.”
Chapter 13
Judge Nedley C. Fisk, a benevolent-appearing gentleman with a mind as sharp as a razor, glanced at Morrison Ormsby, one of the more deadly competent members of the district attorney’s trial staff.
“The peremptory is with the People,” Judge Fisk said.
Ormsby, intently studying a series of cabalistic notes marked opposite the names of the prospective jurors, said without looking up, “The People pass their peremptory at this time.”
Judge Fisk looked at Perry Mason. “The peremptory is with the defendant.”
Mason arose and said gravely, “The defendants are completely satisfied with this jury, Your Honor.”
Ormsby, caught by surprise, looked up incredulously. The defense in an important murder case had not exercised a single peremptory challenge.
“Swear the jury,” Judge Fisk directed the clerk.
After the jury had been sworn, Judge Fisk said, “The remaining members of the panel are excused from this courtroom.
“The persons who now compose this jury are warned that they are not to form or express any opinion in regard to the merits of this controversy until it is finally submitted to them. They are not to discuss the evidence in this case, nor are they to permit it to be discussed in their presence. Court is going to take a fifteen-minute recess before starting evidence in the case. Court will reconvene at exactly ten o’clock.”