“Possibly,” Judge Elwell said, “but in view of the fact that the police have had this place sealed and the seals have not been tampered with, it would seem that the prosecution is now the side that is indulging in fanciful theories.
“I suggest to the police that a search be made of the ground outside of this window, and for a distance of some feet, to see if this bullet can be recovered.
“I am going to continue the case until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock to give the police an opportunity to make this search. I may say that if a fatal bullet is recovered, it should be determinative. If it came from the gun found in the glove compartment of the defendant’s car, it will be a most significant piece of evidence. If, on the other hand, it did not come from that weapon, this Court is going to take another good long look at the evidence.
“I think that’s all we need to do here. The police have searched every nook and cranny. There was only the one place that wasn’t searched, and that place seems to have been the one which held the significant clue.
“Court will stand adjourned until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”
Chapter Eighteen
Perry Mason moved over to Lieutenant Tragg’s side as they filed from the duplex house.
“Want to listen?” he asked.
“I’m a listener,” Tragg said.
Mason said, “When I am taken back to my office, why not come up with me?”
“It’s a deal,” Tragg told him.
“And,” Mason said, “I would suggest you say nothing to Dillon.”
Tragg said, “I would just as soon avoid Mr. Dillon for a while. As a matter of fact. Perry, my face is red. I overlooked a bet.
“We wanted to leave that murder room just exactly the way it was. We found the windows closed, and that window on the west was locked. Therefore, I made a note that it was a locked window and we sealed the place with strips of paper so the evidence couldn’t be disturbed without breaking the seal. That probably was good practice, but when I couldn’t find the fatal bullet I should have done a little more thinking, I guess.”
The little group of lawyers, courtroom attachés and police officers entered the transportation furnished by the sheriff’s office, to be delivered to their respective destinations. Lieutenant Tragg left to join Perry Mason in the lawyer’s office.
“All right, Mason,” Tragg said, “go ahead and shoot.”
“There are entries in Agnes Burlington’s diary that are rather cryptic but furnish corroborating evidence that she was blackmailing the defendant.”
“Go ahead,” Tragg said.
“We’ve gone at this case backwards,” Mason said. “We’ve been looking at it from the standpoint of the defendant.”
“How should we have looked at it?”
“From the standpoint of the decedent.”
“And what would that give us?”
“Suppose,” Mason said, “You were a blackmailer. You’ve been blackmailing a woman over the birth of an illegitimate child. You’ve been getting chicken feed. All of a sudden you find yourself in a position where your testimony is the key testimony in an estate involving two million dollars. What are you going to do? Are you going to sit idle?”
Lieutenant Tragg looked at Mason thoughtfully, blinking his eyes as he digested Mason’s remarks. Suddenly he said, “Hell, no! If I’m a blackmailer, I’m going to try to cash in.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “Agnes Burlington was a blackmailer. She decided to cash in”.
“Now let’s suppose she had some bits of documentary evidence that she had been holding in reserve, also some old .35 mm shots. Let us suppose she tried to cash in with someone who was as hard-boiled as she was. They came to a showdown. The price Agnes wanted was too much for this individual to pay. But, in trying to get her price, Agnes had disclosed the devastating nature of the evidence she held.
“Now you know and I know that a really good ‘cat’ burglar tries to do his stuff when his victim is in the bathtub or in the bathroom getting ready for a bath. The sound of running water while the tub is being filled, the splashing after a person gets in the tub, and the fact that a person bathes in the nude are determining factors.
“The big hotels are troubled with ‘cat’ burglars who put through an early-morning call to some person and then say it’s a mistake. The roomer is wide awake and a little angry — too angry to go back to sleep. He gets up, goes to the bathroom, and starts the water running.
“The ‘cat’ burglar, who has been waiting outside the room, sneaks in, helps himself quickly to what he wants, and gets out. The roomer doesn’t have any idea anything is wrong until he has occasion to pay for something. Then he opens his wallet and finds the money is all gone. It’s a problem the big hotels have to wrestle with.
“That’s what happened in this case. Agnes was ready to take a bath. She had turned the water on in the bathroom. This person who had been carefully planning the burglary was probably waiting behind the back door, which he had opened with a skeleton key.
“But Agnes heard a noise and wasn’t too modest, so she threw the door open and caught the intruder right in the act. Agnes had a gun. She didn’t think she was going to have to use it, but she had it and was holding her visitor at arm’s length with that gun.
“A thunderstorm came up. A sudden gust of wind blew the drapes into the room so that Agnes in her near nudity was exposed to view from the street. Feminine-like, and almost instinctively, she reached for the window to slam it shut. Her visitor saw an opportunity and fired, then took possession of the evidence which could have cost one side of the case a couple of million dollars.”
“You got any ideas about that visitor?” Tragg said.
“Let’s use a little logic there,” Mason said. “The visitor was someone who carried a gun. That visitor went to the interview not intending to shoot, not anticipating that Agnes Burlington would pull a thirty-two-caliber revolver — perhaps not anticipating that the evidence that Agnes Burlington had was quite as devastating as turned out to be the case.
“The visitor was someone who would normally have carried a gun, who was vitally interested in the two million dollars, probably working on a contingency basis with the half brothers.”
“You mean the attorney representing them?” Tragg asked skeptically.
“Attorneys don’t carry guns,” Mason said. “Who carries guns?”
“Police officers,” Tragg said, “but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“And private detectives,” Mason said. “We have a Jarmen Dayton in the case who is a private detective, who is—”
Tragg snapped his fingers.
“An ordinary murderer,” Mason went on, “could get rid of the murder weapon, but a private detective who is licensed to carry a gun might have a little more difficulty disposing of a gun. He couldn’t explain not having his gun.
“While your men are searching for that fatal bullet, Tragg, why don’t you pay an official call on Jarmen Dayton, ask to see the gun he is carrying, check his credentials, fire a couple of test bullets from that gun, and then, in case you do uncover a fatal bullet, see if they match?”
Lieutenant Tragg thought the matter over. “I’m sticking my neck way, way, way out,” he said.
“What do you have to lose?” Mason asked.
“Well, Dayton could make a complaint that I’d been unduly suspicious.”
“And what do you have to win if you’re right?” Mason asked.
Tragg thought that over.
“A spectacular solution of a murder case which has attracted a lot of attention,” Mason pointed out; “a two million-dollar estate...”