Tanner stared at the deputy district attorney. For a moment it seemed as though he might express his feelings by twisting Hanley’s nose. Then Hanley’s attitude of being in complete command of the situation registered sufficiently so that Tanner turned on his heel.
Hortense Zitkousky came up from the back of the courtroom to drop her hand on Stephane Claire’s shoulder. “Chin up and carry on,” she said.
Stephane thanked her with a smile.
Hortense said in a low voice to Mason, “That chauffeur was giving me the eye. Think it would be a good plan to...?”
“Yes,” Mason said, “and don’t be seen with us.”
Hortense moved casually away as Mason gathered up his papers and pushed them into a brief case.
Max Olger came pushing forward from the little knot of spectators who had taken time to mill around the courtroom in little gossiping groups, before departing. The twinkle of his shrewd gray eyes, seemingly intensified by the half spectacles over which they peered, appraised Mason as he grasped the lawyer’s hand.
“Superb,” he said, “marvelous. You led the Lions girl on to absurdities. A very splendid job of cross-examination. I am very well satisfied, very grateful.”
Stephane Claire said, “And I think you did marvelously well, Mr. Mason.”
Mason said, “We may get a break. Mrs. Greeley’s testimony shows that her husband could very well have gone to San Francisco on Homan’s business. It is just barely possible that a person could have been in San Francisco at five-fifteen and at Bakersfield at ten. It would probably mean a plane. Its two hundred and ninety-three miles. We are going to do a little checking, and we may uncover something.”
“Can’t you do that tonight and put on some surprise evidence tomorrow morning?” Max Olger asked.
Mason grinned. “That is why I am stalling along tonight.”
“Where is Jacks?” Stephane Claire asked her uncle.
“He was in court, but he is waiting outside. He thought perhaps it would be better for you to get out of the courtroom and away from the crowd.”
Stephane said musingly, “He is a good kid, always thinking of me. Sometimes I wish he would think of himself once in a while, just by way of variety.”
“A remarkably nice boy,” Olger said. “Well, we shall be at the Adirondack Hotel in case you want us, Mr. Mason.”
“Be sure and be on hand tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,” Mason cautioned. “Remember your bail money is forfeit if you don’t show up.”
Stephane Claire smiled lazily. “Do you,” she asked, “caution all of your clients that way, or are you afraid I am going to skip out?”
Mason grinned. “It’s routine.”
“How did I do on the stand?”
“You were good.”
“Why didn’t he tear into me on cross-examination? I thought he would.”
“Wait until he gets you in front of a jury,” Mason said. “This is just a preliminary. I am not so certain but what Judge Cortright may turn you loose, at that. You have made a good impression.”
Chapter 15
Hortense Zitkousky stood in the doorway of the ladies’ restroom until she heard the pound of quick steps in the corridor. She stepped out of the cross corridor just in time to confront Ernest A. Tanner as he came striding toward the elevator. She received a quick glance, and only a quick glance. He seemed very determined, very much engrossed.
Hortense followed him to the elevator, rode down in the same cage with him. Still Tanner made no effort to speak, hardly seemed to notice her.
On the ground floor, Tanner loitered near the elevators. Hortense walked as far as the door, then turned, came back, and suddenly placed her band on Tanner’s elbow.
Tanner whirled. His eyes, cold and determined, looked down into the jovial countenance of a buxom young woman who very apparently derived much enjoyment from life.
“Don’t do it,” she counseled. “He isn’t worth it.”
Tanner’s eyes softened somewhat. He said, “He has got it coming.”
“Oh, don’t, please! I don’t blame you for being mad, but I certainly wouldn’t play right into his bands.”
“I am not. I am playing right into his face.”
Her good-natured laugh came welling up from her diaphragm. “Forget it. I work for a lawyer. I know what they can do.”
“What has that got to do with me?”
“Homan,” she said. “Why do you suppose he is staying behind? He wants a bodyguard, and protection.”
Tanner said, “I can lick ten times my weight in bodyguards.”
“There is no percentage in it,” she said. “Come on. Let us get out of here.”
“What’s your tie-in with this?” he asked suspiciously.
“I knew a Stephane Claire in San Francisco. I read about the case in the paper and thought she might be the girl I knew. I came up here to find out.”
“Was she?”
She avoided the question. “I had the afternoon off and saw no reason why I should run back to pound a typewriter. The work was all caught up anyway, and then I got interested in the case. Come on. Be a sport and get started for home. Then I can go about my business and forget you.”
“What do you care what happens to me?”
She considered the question for a moment, then smiled and said, “Darned if I know. I just do. Perhaps it’s a maternal instinct.”
“Maternal!” he said. His eyes studied her with more interest. “Tell you what. Come on to dinner with me, and I shall call it off.”
“Oh-oh,” she said. “Fast like that.”
“Is it a deal?”
“Come on outside, and we shall talk it over.”
“You are trying to decoy me away from here and then...”
A descending cage came to a stop. The big door smoothly slid back, and Homan stepped out. Two broad-shouldered men were with him.
Hortense Zitkousky moved so that she was between Tanner and the elevator, raised her voice slightly, and said, “... and I says to her, ‘That may be your way of doing things, but it ain’t mine.’ Well, you know Gertie, and you know how she would take a thing like that. She...”
One of the men escorted Homan toward the door. The other paused belligerently. Tanner started to move around past Hortense.
Her finger traced a design on the lapel of Tanner’s coat. “Well,” she said, “that floored her. Gertie just sat and looked at me and...”
The officer hesitated a moment, then followed Homan and the other plainclothes man out of the door.
Tanner let his breath go in a deep sigh. “I guess,” he said, “I owe you one for that.”
“Can’t you see? They have got you, coming and going. There is nothing you can do with a setup like that. Come on. Forget it. If you feel that way about it, and really want to do something, why don’t you go to the girl’s lawyer?”
“Not me,” Tanner said. “I don’t rat.”
“But there is nothing to rat about... is there?”
He said shortly, “Homan is a liar. It is all right by me. I am not squealing on him, but I am not going to be the goat.”
“Oh, forget him. He is just a stuffed shirt.”
“I shall say he is. Just another one of those guys who graduated from nothing into big money, and puff out like a circus balloon. Someday somebody will stick a pin into him, and he will go pop and be just a fistful of limp rubber.”
Hortenze Zitkousky was talking easily now. “I used to work for one of those Hollywood writers. My gosh, did he take himself seriously. And the stuff he turned out! Why, say, when he was working, he couldn’t be disturbed, and he had to have coffee at just the right temperature, and a whole carton of cigarettes at his elbow, and ashtrays and matches. You would think he was turning out the world’s greatest masterpiece, and when you saw it on the screen, it made you gag. The only thing that held the audience through to the end was the dishes and groceries.”