“About this case?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“I think you’d better talk right here,” Mason said. “I think we’d better have this out in a joint session, so to speak.”
“All right,” Drake said. “Dorrie Ambler is dead. She was murdered. Her body has been uncovered, and police have what they consider an airtight case against Minerva Minden.”
Mason pushed back his chair, got to his feet, stood in frowning concentration for a moment, then walked around the corner of his desk over to the window, turned his back to the interior of the office, looked down at the street for a few minutes, turned around, said to Henrietta Hull, “If what Paul Drake says is true, Mrs. Hull, your employer is in a most serious predicament; exceedingly serious.”
“I understand that.”
“Did you know Miss Ambler was dead?”
“I knew the police said... that they had discovered her body — yes.”
“Let me ask you this: Is Minerva guilty?”
“She is not guilty,” Henrietta Hull said with firm conviction.
“How do you know she isn’t guilty? Simply because of what you know of her?”
“No. Because of what I know of the case. Dorrie teamed up with a couple of crooks. They killed her. Now they want to blame that murder on Minerva. Miss Ambler tried to pull a fast one. Her scheme boomeranged. Minerva is not guilty of anything. Does all this make a difference about your taking Minerva’s case?”
“It makes a difference,” Mason said. “Technically no matter how guilty a person may be he is not convicted until final judgment has been passed. He is entitled to have an attorney at every stage of the proceedings; not necessarily in order to prove him innocent but to see that all his legal rights are protected.”
“And Minerva would have that right as a citizen?”
“She would have that right as a citizen.”
“She wants you as her attorney.”
Drake cleared his throat, caught Mason’s eye, imperceptibly shook his head.
“Why not, Paul? Come out with it,” Mason said. “Let’s not be beating around the bush or equivocating.”
“All right,” Drake said. “Police have got an airtight case against her.”
“You said that before.”
“Her accomplice has confessed,” Drake said.
“Who was it?” Mason asked.
“The man she hired to accompany her to Dorrie Ambler’s apartment and abduct her.”
“He says Minerva was with him at that time?” Mason asked.
“I understand that he does.”
“Do you know the details, Paul?”
“Only generalities. This fellow’s name is Jasper. He says that Minerva told him that she had inherited a fortune, that Dorrie Ambler stood in the way of her keeping exclusive control of the estate, that she wanted Dorrie Ambler out of the way, that she would arrange a background which would give them absolute protection but she wanted Jasper to help her at the proper time.
“Jasper, incidentally, has a long criminal record. Billings tried to blackmail Minerva, not Dorrie Ambler. He wound up with a fatal bullet in his chest.”
“And they’ve arrested Minerva Minden for the murder of Dorrie Ambler?”
Drake shook his head. “They’re going to prosecute her for the murder of Marvin Billings. Then, in case she should get an acquittal or a verdict that didn’t carry the death penalty, they’re going to prosecute her for the murder of Dorrie Ambler. The Ambler murder depends on circumstantial evidence. They’ve got the deadwood evidence, several admissions and an eyewitness in the Marvin Billings murder. Minerva can never beat that rap.”
Mason reached a sudden decision. He said, “I’ll represent her on the murder of Marvin Billings. If that’s the murder she’s being charged with, I’ll be her attorney in that case. I won’t promise to represent her if she is being charged with the murder of Dorrie Ambler. I’d have to think that one over.”
“Fair enough,” Henrietta Hull said. “Consider yourself retained, Mr. Mason.”
“Just a minute,” Mason said. “If you haven’t communicated with her, how do you know that the case on which she’s being prosecuted is the Billings murder and not the Dorrie Ambler murder?”
Henrietta Hull hesitated for just the bat of an eyelash, then said, “Frankly, I don’t, Mr. Mason. But if it should turn out to be the other way around, you could always give back the retainer and withdraw from the case. It would be all right with us.”
Mason said, “Let me take a look at that note that Minerva left for you.”
Henrietta Hull opened her purse, took out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Mason.
The note read: “Henny— Going to Headquarters. If I’m not in by nine do the necessary.”
“There are no specific instructions in this letter,” Mason said. “Certainly none to retain me or to call on the Drake Detective Agency.”
“I think you’re mistaken, Mr. Mason. She said, and I quote, ‘Do the necessary.’ ”
“Does that mean that you and Minerva had discussed this matter in advance?”
“It means,” she said, “that Minerva trusted my discretion to do the necessary and I am doing it.”
“Now look,” Drake said, “I’m not going to hang any crepe, but there have been two deliberate cold-blooded murders here. One of them was carefully planned in advance. The other may have been done in the heat of passion. But they’ve now got an open-and-shut case against Minerva Minden. You know it and I know it. They have eyewitnesses. They wouldn’t have dared touch her with a ten-foot pole if they didn’t have the deadwood.”
Mason, who had been frowning thoughtfully, said, “Give Mrs. Hull a receipt for twenty thousand dollars as a retainer fee, Della.”
Chapter Eleven
Perry Mason, seated in the consulting room in the jail building, looked across at Minerva Minden and said, “Minerva, before you say a word to me, I want to tell you that Henrietta Hull called on me this morning. She gave me a check for twenty thousand dollars as a retainer to represent you. I told her that I would defend you on the charge of murdering Marvin Billings; that I couldn’t as yet tell whether I would defend you on the charge of murdering Dorrie Ambler.”
“As I understand it,” she said, “the Billings murder is the one on which I am being held.”
“Has a formal complaint been signed?”
“I believe they’re intending to have an indictment by the grand jury and for some reason they want to have the trial itself take place just as soon as possible — and that suits me.”
“Ordinarily,” Mason said, “we spar for time in a criminal case and try to see what develops.”
“This isn’t an ordinary case,” she said.
“I’m satisfied it isn’t,” Mason told her. “I’m beginning to have a glimmering of what I think happened.” She shook her head and said, “I don’t think you know enough of the facts to reach any conclusion.”
“Perhaps I don’t,” Mason said. “I am going to ask you one question. Did you murder Marvin Billings?”
“No.”
“At the moment that’s all I want to know,” Mason said.
“All right,” she told him. “Now I have a confession to make to you. I—”
“Is this to confess a crime?” Mason interposed.
“Yes, but it’s—”
Mason held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear any confession.”
“This isn’t what you think it is. It doesn’t relate to—”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?” Mason interrupted.
She said, “Because this is something that would never have occurred to you. It’s about another matter entirely. It doesn’t have to do with this murder, it has to do with—”