“Now, just a minute,” Judge Fisk interrupted. “You’ve made your objection and your assignment of misconduct. The Court is inclined to think the situation is somewhat irregular, but the Court realizes that Mr. Mason is right, the jurors have the right to take these exhibits with them and I don’t know that we can place any limitation on what the jurors do with those exhibits.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Mason said, and he turned to the jurors and bowed. “You will remember that the prosecutor himself has told you in his opening argument that all you need to compare fingerprints is good eyesight and good judgment.
“The Court will instruct you that if, after you have studied all of the evidence, there is a reasonable doubt in your mind as to the guilt of the defendants, you must acquit. I thank you.”
Mason sat down.
Ormsby, on his feet, throwing caution and discretion to the winds, angry and enraged, shouted and bellowed at the jurors, pounded the table, pointed a finger of scorn at Mason, accused him of unprofessional practice, stated that he hadn’t called a fingerprint expert to show that the fingerprints which hadn’t been identified by the police were those of Nadine Palmer because he was afraid to.
Mason sat and smiled, first at Ormsby, then at the jurors. It was the smile of a man who can afford to be magnanimous in victory; a man who is watching the hysterical rantings of a person going down to defeat and knowing it.
The jurors were out two hours and a half, then returned a verdict finding both defendants not guilty.
Chapter 16
Perry Mason and Della Street sat with Morley Eden and Vivian Carson in the lawyer’s private office.
“Now then,” Mason said, “there’s no one here except your lawyer, his secretary and the four walls of this office. You people are going to tell me what happened. You’ve been acquitted of the murder. You can never be prosecuted for it again.
“In order to get you acquitted I had to throw suspicion on the principal witness for the prosecution. That was a part of my legitimate duties as an attorney representing you. I had to create a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.
“However, I am not certain that Nadine Palmer murdered Loring Carson, and by George, you’re going to help me find out who did. If she did, we’re going to have her prosecuted and if she didn’t we’re going to see that her name, which has been batted around plenty as it is, is not going to be besmirched any further.
“Now then, you two, start talking.”
Eden looked at Vivian Carson.
She hung her head. “You tell him,” she said.
“All right,” Eden said, “here’s what actually happened. And if you had known the facts, or if the police had found out the facts, we would have been convicted of first-degree murder without so much as a chance.”
“All right,” Mason said, “what happened?”
“From the first moment I saw Vivian Carson,” Morley Eden said, “I was strongly attracted to her.”
“It was mutual,” Vivian Carson said. “This is a horrible confession for a woman to make, but I trembled like a leaf when I was around him.”
Morley Eden put his arm around her, patted her shoulder.
“Go on,” Mason said, “we’ll start from there. It was love at first sight.”
“Well, almost at first sight,” Morley Eden said.
“In a bikini,” Mason commented dryly.
“All right,” she said, “I planned that deliberately. I wanted to arouse his attention. I wanted to get him — well, I wanted to get him to make some overt act so I could cite him for contempt and make him simply furious against Loring.”
“All right,” Mason said, “we’ll take all that for granted. That’s the way it started out. Now then, what happened after that?”
Morley Eden said, “On the evening of the fourteenth, Vivian told me her car was in need of repairs. She asked me as a matter of neighborly accommodation if I would mind driving her down to a nearby garage and bringing her back.
“By that time we had begun to get fairly well acquainted and had made something of a joke about our so-called neighborly cooperation.
“I drove her to the garage, then she remembered something that she had forgotten to bring to the house. It was in her apartment. I told her I’d be glad to drive her to her apartment and bring her home. Then the question of dinner came up and I invited her to dinner. We went to dinner and after dinner went to a show. Then we went to her apartment to get the things she wanted, and while we were there we got to talking.
“She pointed out that this was what she called neutral ground and I said something about a fence and she said there was no fence between us here, and the next thing I knew I had her in my arms and — well, after that time passed rather rapidly. We started making plans, sitting there talking into the small hours of the night. I just didn’t want to break the spell, and I don’t think she did.
“And then suddenly we heard a key in the lock, the door opened and Loring Carson was standing there. He made some remarks that were decidedly insulting to his wife, remarks that were off-color and which were unbelievably coarse. I hit him. He got up and we had a fight. I threw him out of the door and told him if he ever came back or if he ever molested Vivian I’d kill him.”
“Did anyone hear that?” Mason asked.
“Heavens, yes,” Morley Eden said. “That’s one of the things that bothered me. One of the neighbors heard the whole business, but that neighbor was sympathetic and evidently kept his mouth shut. I don’t know why the police didn’t suspect something like this and question the neighbors, but apparently they didn’t have any idea that Vivian and I had been together in her apartment that night.
“The woman who saw us put the car in the garage volunteered the information to the police, but the police acted on the assumption we were both elsewhere during the night.”
“Then what happened?” Mason asked.
“After I threw Carson out, we waited until daylight, then we had breakfast and went out. Loring Carson’s car was parked in front of the fireplug and there was a tag on it.
“I decided it might be a good thing to move it so I took the brake off and pushed the car a little way down the hill so that it was away from the fireplug. When Carson barged into the apartment he had been drinking. Maybe he didn’t know he’d parked in front of a fireplug. But Vivian thinks it was all deliberate — a last-ditch stand to avoid the fraud suit by creating evidence that would jeopardize the interlocutory judgment. Otherwise, why would he have a key to the apartment? Vivian certainly hadn’t given him one.”
“But what happened to him after he left the apartment?” Mason asked. “He must have driven up in his car. Why didn’t he leave in it — after finding you two together there?”
“I don’t know,” Eden said. “That’s one of the things that bothered me. We could look out of the apartment window and see the car parked there. I think perhaps I would have — well, we would have left before daylight if the car hadn’t been there but... Well, that’s the way it was. We thought he might have a gun and... well, we didn’t know what would happen.”
“Then what?” Mason asked.
“Then I came to your office and signed the verification on the complaint. While I was doing that, Vivian was seated in my car down in the parking lot. I couldn’t help thinking what a surprise it would have been if you had known that.”