“So when the police came, I told them I didn’t like their attitude and I’d have to see a lawyer before I so much as gave them the time of day. That was when Enny said, ‘Get Perry Mason, honey.’ And so I told him I was going to. It was his own suggestion.”
“What about your fifth wedding anniversary?”
Her eyes became dreamy. “I have him back, Mr. Mason.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
She nodded. “It happened exactly the way I had hoped it would happen,” she said. “Roxy had been leading Enny on with all of those languishing sighs and sidelong glances. But the minute it began to look as if Enny had got her into a business deal which might terminate in a lawsuit, that woman’s real character came to the front.
“She dragged Enny off to her lawyer, her lawyer made the mistake of trying to browbeat Enny, telling Enny that he would be responsible because his client had acted on Enny’s advice, and Roxy sat there and nodded her head, with all of her selfish, scheming disposition showing in her eyes, and Enny got so disgusted he felt he never wanted to see her again as long as he lives.”
“So then what happened?”
“So then he came home to me, wanting to confess his infidelities and be forgiven.”
“And what happened?”
“I never gave him the chance to confess,” she said. “I told you that a woman should never forgive a man for his infidelities. It puts them both in an embarrassing position. She should simply be ignorant of them. I told him that, of course, I knew in making business deals with women like Roxy, he had to use a little sales appeal. I said I expected that, and then I smiled and asked him if he remembered the first time he had met me, and all of a sudden, I was the body beautiful and Roxy Claffin was just a legal headache.”
“And how did you explain about me?”
“I didn’t have to explain. He told me all about you and about what you had done at the directors’ meeting, and I just lay in his arms and stroked his hair and smoothed his forehead and let him tell me his troubles. And he told me that Roxy’s lawyer had said that you were the most diabolically ingenious attorney of the whole California Bar; so I said, ‘Well, that’s fine. If I ever get in trouble, I’ll call on Perry Mason.’ And he said, ‘You’ll never get in trouble, but if you do, he’s the man you want.’
“So then, when the officers came out and started asking him questions about the gun and interrogating me and... and when they found that receipt from the taxicab in my purse — Mr. Mason, do you think it was wise having me leave that receipt in my purse? Shouldn’t I have destroyed it and—”
Mason said, “No, no, that’s just the way I want it. Tell me, what about the gun?”
“Well, it’s one of Enny’s guns, all right.”
Mason said, “Is that the gun you had in your glove compartment?”
“Apparently.”
“Did you take it from Enny’s collection?”
“He gave it to me.”
“How did it get up there at the scene of the crime?”
“There’s only one way — someone broke into my glove compartment and stole it.”
“When?”
“It could only have been after — afterwards. I can tell you one thing, Mr. Mason — that gun never killed George Lutts.”
“Ballistic experts say it did.”
“Then the ballistic experts are lying.”
“How do you know it didn’t kill Lutts?”
“I... I’m sure it didn’t. Mr. Mason, you can pin your whole defence on cross-examining those ballistic experts. They just can’t make that theory stand up. That’s not the fatal gun.”
“They can identify bullets and guns with scientific accuracy,” Mason warned.
“I don’t care what they can do. They’re bluffing, trying to get us to make some admission. I’ll absolutely guarantee that’s not the fatal gun, Mr. Mason.”
“All right,” Mason told her. “Here’s the hard part. Look me right in the eyes.”
“I’m looking.”
“Did your husband kill George Lutts?”
“Good heavens, no!”
“How do you know he didn’t?”
“Why, he wouldn’t do a thing like that and... and then, besides, at the time Lutts and I were up at that old house Enny and Roxy were just getting ready to leave for an appointment with Roxy’s lawyer.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. Enny told me all about it. They had an appointment with Arthur Hagan. He’d been in court all day, but he said he’d see them after five o’clock.
“I saw Enny drive up while I was up there on the hill. That is, I guess it was Enny, It was his car. He wanted to take Roxy with him to see the lawyer.”
“You didn’t see him drive away?”
“No.”
“Did you see Roxy?”
“Yes. She was running around down there, and Enny honked the horn a couple of times to hurry her up. He hates to be kept waiting.”
“But you saw both of them down there.”
“Yes. That is, I saw Roxy and I saw Enny’s car with someone in it. I presume it was Enny.”
“You’re certain of Roxy?”
“Oh yes, there’s no mistaking that little minx. I wonder how she’s feeling, now that she realizes she made a play for Enny and lost him.”
“She may be feeling pretty good,” Mason said significantly. “She knows that you’re being questioned about the murder of George C. Lutts, and it just may occur to her to think of something that would enable her to help the prosecution with its case. That would put you out of the way for a nice long time and leave your husband where she could get her claws into him again.”
“She’ll never get her claws into him again,” she said. “Enny isn’t entirely a fool, and I guess her true character came to the surface when she got Enny into the lawyer’s office.”
“When did that happen?”
“Sometime around five o’clock, I think.”
Mason said, “The point I’ve been trying to make is that despite the fact it was your husband’s gun that was used in the murder, the police seem to be leaving him pretty much alone.”
“That’s because he has such an ironclad alibi. They’ve checked it. He was in his own office until shortly after four; then he dashed out to get Roxy and went to see her lawyer. They were with him until six-thirty. Apparently, Mr. Mason, you threw a double-barreled scare into everyone. That legal point you thought up must have been a dilly. I understand that Roxy’s lawyer is pretty much worried. And, of course, that made Roxy get in a panic — she may be liberal with her affections, but that’s the extent of her generosity. She’s tight as wallpaper with her dollars.”
“All right,” Mason said. “What did you tell the officers?”
“Not one thing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Not even on preliminary questions?”
“No. I told them I left the beauty parlor, because I knew they’d find out about my going there. In fact, I’d told my maid to tell anyone who called that that’s where I was. But aside from that I told them nothing. I said I’d been attending to some very private business and I didn’t care to make any comment.”
Mason said, “Do you mean you didn’t even tell—”
“Mr. Mason, I told them nothing!”
“Good girl,” Mason told her. “Don’t tell them anything until we know where we stand — but it isn’t going to be pleasant.”
She smiled. “I can take it. I can take anything now.”
“All right,” Mason told her. “Keep a stiff upper lip and I’ll do everything I can.”
The lawyer signaled to the matron that the interview was over, watched Sybil Harlan being led away, then went to a telephone and called Harry Blanton at Paul Drake’s office.