“The tracks have been discovered,” Tragg said drily. “I’m going up to take a look at them. They tend to corroborate your story a hundred percent. Now think carefully. You shut off the ignition on the car when you stopped it?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you switch out the headlights?”
“No, I left the headlights on.”
“So the position of the car could be seen quite clearly?”
“Yes.”
“And when you walked around the car, you walked in front of the car?”
“That’s right.”
“Where were you when you threw the gun away?”
“Standing right in front of the car.”
“So the headlights were on you, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“So anyone who was standing some distance back of the car could watch and see plainly what you had done?”
“Yes.”
Tragg looked speculatively at Mason. “Your client tell you anything about this?”
Mason hesitated a moment, then shook his head.
“She should have,” Tragg said.
“What do you mean?” Mason asked.
Tragg said, “Now I can begin to put the whole thing together. Your client ran down to the roadway, Mason. She stopped there. She heard what Fleetwood said about her husband being in the car and being unconscious. She waited. She watched Fleetwood walk around the front of the car and stand in front of the headlights. She saw him throw the gun away. Then she saw him start toward Overbrook’s house. She waited. She had a jack handle in her hand. She knew her husband intended to kill her. She stood there in the drizzle, and in the darkness, waiting. When she saw Fleetwood didn’t intend to come back, she tiptoed back to the car to make sure what Fleetwood said was correct. She found out it was correct. Her husband was just regaining consciousness.
“Mrs. Allred opened the car door on the left-hand side. She got in and proceeded to club her husband to death with the jack handle. Then she backed the car around, drove it back to the highway, down to a place where there was a sheer drop, took her suitcase out, threw the jack handle away, got back in the car and headed it toward the cliff, jumped out, leaving her husband inside, stopped a passing motorist and hitchhiked to town. Now then, if she wants to co-operate, she can cop a plea of manslaughter.”
Mason said, “She didn’t do anything of the sort.”
Tragg smiled knowingly. “The tracks say she did, and tracks don’t lie.”
Mason said, “Fleetwood, if your story’s true, how did it happen that you didn’t...”
Tragg suddenly got to his feet. “I think that will do, Mason.”
“How’s that?” the lawyer asked.
Tragg was smiling. “You’ve done me quite a favor, Mason,” he said. “You’ve got this witness to quit stalling around. He’s told a story now that checks absolutely with the facts. And right now I don’t want you to do anything to spoil it. You’ll have an opportunity to cross-examine this witness when he gets on the witness stand. We can dispense with any further questions from you. You’re going home and get some sleep.”
Mason said, “There are just a couple of questions I want to ask, Tragg. A couple of points I want to clear up.”
Tragg smiled and shook his head.
Mason said, “Hang it, I developed this whole thing for you. I...”
Tragg turned to Fleetwood and said, “No matter what Mason says, Fleetwood, don’t say another word as long as he’s in the room. Do you understand?”
Fleetwood nodded.
Mason, recognizing defeat, pinched out the end of his cigarette, said to Tragg, “Well, it was nice while it lasted.”
Tragg grinned. “This is once,” he said, “that not only does Perry Mason’s client have her neck in the noose, but the great Perry Mason put it there.”
“That’s all right,” Mason said grimly. “What I wanted was the truth. I knew that Fleetwood was lying about that amnesia.”
“Who didn’t?” Tragg said. “I was waiting for him to crack at the proper moment. But when you showed up here, I thought that perhaps you could soften him up for me. I didn’t realize that you were going to play into my hands this far.”
“I didn’t either,” Mason said grimly, and stalked out of the room.
16
The clock on the wall of the visitors’ room of the county jail said that it was ten minutes past nine in the morning. Mason sat on one side of the heavy steel mesh which separated the two ends of the room. Mrs. Allred sat on the other side. At the far corner a matron waited for the lawyer to finish his visit with his client.
“What did you tell Lieutenant Tragg?” Mason asked her.
“Not a thing. He never came near me.”
“That’s bad,” Mason conceded.
“Why is it bad?”
Mason sketched out Fleetwood’s story, while Mrs. Allred listened intently. When he finished, there was a few moments’ silence.
Then Mrs. Allred said quickly, “It’s all a complete lie, Mr. Mason.”
Mason shook his head. “Something corroborates Fleetwood’s story. I don’t know yet what it is. If Tragg hasn’t been hot after you for a statement, it means Fleetwood’s story gets a good corroboration, all the way along the line. There are tracks, for one thing. There is only one explanation. You haven’t been telling me the truth.
“Fleetwood stalled around long enough with one thing and another, but when he finally came through with the story, he came through with a humdinger. It’s a story that puts you in the position of committing a nice little murder. And the nice part of it is that provocation is there. And motivation is there. The thing is so marvelously tailored that the jury will sympathize with you, but will decide that you’re technically guilty, probably of manslaughter.”
She said, “Fleetwood must have killed him, Mr. Mason.”
The lawyer shook his head. “I’m not so certain,” he said.
“But he must have! It had to be either Bob Fleetwood or me.”
“So it would seem.”
“And I know that I didn’t kill him!”
Mason said, “I wish that I could find some way of making a jury share your conviction.”
“Do you feel that — that I’m in a spot?”
“Fleetwood’s story,” Mason said, “is one that sounds convincing.”
“Even to you?”
Mason said, “I make it a point in my business to believe my clients always.”
“If I weren’t your client, Bob Fleetwood’s story would convince you?”
“It might,” Mason admitted. “I wanted to see what you had to say about having been in the luggage compartment of that car.”
“I never was.”
“Do you know of anyone who was?”
“No.”
“There’s blood on the carpet. The officers found that.”
“So I understand.”
“And you can’t explain that? You didn’t have a bloody nose?”
“No.”
Mason said thoughtfully, “You know, if it had only occurred to you to tell the story that Fleetwood told, but dress it up with a few variations, it might have accounted for everything, including the blood on the carpet of the luggage compartment.”
“But I told you the truth, Mr. Mason.”
“There are times,” Mason said, “when an artistic lie can crowd the truth right off the stage. The interesting thing is that Fleetwood’s story is so beautifully logical and puts you in such a sympathetic light in front of the public. But it also hangs the technical killing of your husband right around your neck. I wish you could find some way of accounting for how blood got on the carpet of the luggage compartment.”
“Well, I can’t.”
“That’s the nice part of Fleetwood’s story,” Mason said. “It accounts for everything. It gives the police a beautiful, beautiful case.”
“Against me?”