Mason grinned and said, “You did it under my instructions, Della. You keep out of this.”
“I will not,” she retorted. “I’ll take my share of the responsibility.”
Emil Scanlon finished reading his note, whispered instructions to his secretary, and said, “Very well, we’ll proceed with the preliminary hearing on the case of People against Mae Farr.”
Oscar Overmeyer got to his feet. “May it please the Court,” he said. “We understand your desire for an informal, expeditious hearing. However, within the last few hours, I may say within the last few minutes, the district attorney’s office has come into possession of evidence which materially changes the entire complexion of the case.
“We are now prepared to show by witnesses that the murder did not take place as was originally supposed. In fact, we might refer to it as the case of the postponed murder. What Harold Anders really believed to have been a shot and what Mae Farr said she believed was a shot was in reality not a shot, but the explosion of a flash bulb.
“We understand, of course, that the Justice wishes to move this hearing along as fast as possible. For that reason, we call our first witness, Sidney Eversel, and call the Justice’s attention to the fact that the testimony of this witness will be so pertinent, in fact I may say so spectacular, as to cause a complete change in our order of calling other witnesses.”
Scanlon frowned a moment in thought, glanced surreptitiously at Perry Mason, saw no evidence of an objection, and said, “Very well, for the purpose of getting to the bottom of this case in the shortest possible time, I’ll let you call Sidney Eversel.”
Sidney Eversel marched forward and was sworn.
“Do you,” Scanlon asked, “know anything about this murder?”
“I know this much about it,” Eversel said. “I know when it was not committed.”
“Exactly what do you know?” the Justice asked.
Sidney Eversel said, “I’m going to make a clean breast of things. I have long been in love with Juanita Wentworth. I met her and fell in love with her while she was still married to Penn Wentworth, while she was living with him as his wife. The intensity of my emotion made me indiscreet.”
Eversel paused and swallowed. Evidently he had memorized this much of his testimony but found the recital of it more difficult than he had anticipated. After a moment, he went on.
“Wentworth was diabolically clever. He found out all about our affair. I believe he was insanely jealous of me. He wanted Juanita — Mrs. Wentworth — to return to him. She had left him shortly after meeting me. He threatened that unless she did return, he would sue me for alienation of affections. He refused to give her a divorce. His entire actions were those of a man who is utterly selfish and acting without consideration.”
“Never mind that,” Scanlon interrupted. “Just what do you know?”
Eversel said, “I rankled at the injustice of it because I knew that Wentworth was entertaining numerous women aboard his yacht. I determined to get evidence which would put Wentworth on the defensive — in a position where he would be forced to listen to reason and give his wife a divorce without dragging my name into it.”
“What did you do?” Scanlon asked.
“On the night of the twelfth,” Eversel said, “I lay in wait at the Yacht Club watching his boat. I knew that Miss Farr had been a frequent visitor aboard that yacht. The night was hot and stuffy. Wentworth had the skylight in his cabin open. I crept closer and closer to the yacht, listening. When I thought the time was ripe, I boarded the yacht and looked down through the skylight. I saw Wentworth in a very compromising position. His face was away from the camera. I put my finger on the shutter release and called his name softly. He didn’t hear me the first time. I called a second time, and he looked up in alarm. At that moment, I pressed the trigger and a flash bulb, synchronized with the shutter of the camera, exploded, giving me a sharp, clear picture.”
“What did you do?”
Carl Runcifer whispered to Oscar Overmeyer, “This is the most incredible substitute for a legal proceeding imaginable. Are you going to let Scanlon get by with this type of hearing? Aren’t you going to object to his examining the witnesses?”
“Won’t do a bit of good,” Overmeyer whispered back. “This is the way Emil Scanlon always runs his show; and surprisingly enough, it always comes out okay.”
“I turned and ran from the yacht,” Eversel continued. “I drove home and developed the picture. It was a perfect negative. I could hardly wait. I knew that Mrs. Wentworth was in San Diego. I jumped in my plane and flew to San Diego, explained the circumstances to her, and brought her back with me. By the time we returned, the negative was dry. I put it in the enlarging camera and made a print. Naturally I felt very jubilant. Then I flew Mrs. Wentworth back to San Diego.
“Subsequently, that negative was stolen from my house. At the time of its disappearance, Perry Mason, the attorney representing Miss Farr, was prowling around the grounds. I demand that that negative be produced. When it is produced, I intend to prosecute him for burglary.”
Emil Scanlon pursed his lips thoughtfully and assiduously avoided glancing at Perry Mason. “Well,” he said after a moment, “if anything like that happened, it’s something that’s entirely apart from this case. As I see it, your testimony may show that the murder wasn’t committed at the time we had supposed. That’s all that relates to the present investigation.”
Oscar Overmeyer said, “May I ask a question if the Justice please?”
“Yes.”
“When you were flying to San Diego the first time,” Overmeyer asked, “did you take a direct course a part of the way over the water?”
“Yes,” Eversel answered. “My plane is an amphibian. The night was calm. The rainstorm hadn’t begun then, and the safety factor in night flying induced me to keep over the ocean.”
“While you were near the outer entrance of the harbour, did you notice by any chance a yacht?”
“I did.”
“What yacht was it?”
“It was the express cruiser Atina belonging to Frank Marley.”
“And who is Frank Marley?”
“A partner of Wentworth’s.”
“You know him?”
“I know of him, and I know him personally. I am quite familiar with his boat.”
“You were flying low?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do, if anything?”
“I circled the cruiser several times, thinking that it was rather significant that it was heading out to sea.”
“Did you have any means of illumination by which you could...”
“Yes, I have a pair of searchlights in the wings. I turned them on the cruiser.”
“What did you see?”
“I identified the Atina absolutely. I saw that someone was at the wheel. I could see that someone was a woman, and that she was wearing clothes of the identical color that had been worn by Mae Farr when she went aboard the Pennwent earlier in the evening.”
Overmeyer bowed and smiled. “If the Justice please,” he said, “that is all.”
Mason raised his eyebrows at the JP, and Emil Scanlon nodded.
“Did you fly over any other yachts while you were en route to San Diego?” Mason asked casually.
Overmeyer said, “If the Justice please, that has nothing to do with this case. It is an attempt to confuse the issues and—”
“I would have asked the question myself if Mr. Mason hadn’t,” the JP interrupted. “I said I didn’t want any purely technical objections. Let’s hear the answer to that question.”
Eversel squirmed uneasily in the witness chair. He glanced appealingly at Overmeyer, then averted his eyes.