“When will he know that?”
“Perhaps not for a day or two,” Drake said. “It depends on how the publicity hits the newspapers. There’s really something weird about this case, Perry, and don’t underestimate Endicott Campbell. There’s one smooth, fast, clever operator.”
Mason said, “I made a mistake there, Paul. I should have had you keep a couple of shadows on him and find out where he went and what he was doing. Of course we had no way of knowing Amelia Corning was going to disappear.”
“Naturally,” Drake said.
“All right,” Mason told him, “you get busy and find out everything you can. Get every possible scrap of information. In the meantime, take these lifts of fingerprints and try to match them up. By this time the police have booked Susan Fisher, so they’ll have her fingerprints. The coroner will have taken the fingerprints of Ken Lowry. Whether we can find fingerprints of Amelia Corning is another question. I think they may have taken them in connection with her passport visa or some other governmental red tape in connection with immigration. They’re probably on file somewhere.”
“Suppose either Amelia Corning or Ken Lowry had been in that rented car,” Drake said. “Suppose fingerprints are identified.”
Mason thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “If either of them was in that car,” he said, “we’re licked.”
Drake said, “Somehow I have a peculiar feeling in the pit of my stomach over this one, Perry. I think they’re laying for you.”
“Well,” Mason said, “you won’t have any difficulty getting the fingerprints of Ken Lowry. He’s at the morgue. Get somebody working on that right away.”
“I already have,” Drake said. “Let me have the lifts and I’ll go down to my office. I instructed my office to get fingerprints as soon as the coroner had made them.”
“The coroner would let them go?” Mason asked.
“Sure,” Drake said. “They handle that stuff as a matter of course. They fingerprint every corpse that comes in for autopsy.”
“How was the murder committed, do you know?”
“A jab into the heart; a single stab wound, evidently a stiletto letter opener.”
“Where was the point of entrance, front or back?”
“Side,” Drake said. “It evidently caught Ken Lowry completely by surprise. He was with someone he trusted.”
“All right,” Mason said. “You start working on those fingerprints.”
“I can check on Lowry’s fingerprints within a few minutes,” Drake said. “Let me call my office. I’ll have the prints sent down here.”
Drake called his office, said, “I’m in Mason’s office. Did you get the fingerprints of Ken Lowry from the coroner?... Good... Send them down, will you?”
Within thirty seconds Drake’s switchboard operator was at the door with the set of fingerprints and Drake sat down at the desk. Mason got the lifts from his briefcase and handed them to Drake.
Drake sat there with a magnifying glass, examining first one lift and then the other against the ten fingerprints which had been received from the coroner’s office.
Suddenly Drake looked up, an expression of dismay on his face. “Hold everything, Perry,” he said.
“What is it?” Mason asked.
“Let me make sure,” Drake said.
He held one of the lifts a few inches above the print which had been received from the coroner’s office, then slowly folded the magnifying glass, put it down on the desk, looked up at Perry and said, “This time you’ve done it. Ken Lowry’s fingerprint was one of those lifted from the automobile.
“If you notify Lieutenant Tragg that you have that print you’ve given your client a one-way ticket to the gas chamber and if you don’t notify him, you’ve put yourself in the position of concealing vital evidence in a murder case.”
Mason thought the matter over for a minute, then said, “We’ll do neither, Paul. Ring up your man who lifted the fingerprints. Tell him the car is figuring in a murder case and he should develop his photographs of the prints and take them to the police immediately.”
“Without letting anyone know that you suggested he do so?”
“That’s right.”
“That makes you vulnerable on both flanks,” Drake said. “The police have the information and you don’t have the credit of turning over the evidence to the police as a potential defense.”
Mason nodded. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, Paul. If the police start working on me they won’t have so much time to work on Susan Fisher. I’ll be a distraction.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Drake said lugubriously, “they’ll take time to work on everyone, including me.”
Chapter 11
As Judge Burton Elmer entered the courtroom from chambers and stood for a moment while the bailiff proclaimed that court was in session, interested spectators noticed that Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, had seated himself at the right of his deputy, Harrison Flanders. Word had spread around through the county offices like wildfire that this was one case where Perry Mason’s client would be proven guilty so thoroughly that there could be no possibility the lawyer could win his case. Her ultimate conviction was considered a mathematical certainty, and there was not the slightest question that she would be bound over to the Superior Court after the hearing in Judge Elmer’s court.
Moreover, it was rumored that immediately following Judge Elmer’s order binding the defendant over to the Superior Court for trial, Perry Mason would be charged with having concealed material evidence and proceedings would be instituted against him.
One of the prominent columnists had gone so far as to predict in the morning paper that the case itself would be over in Judge Elmer’s court within two hours, and that before night the lawyer would find himself in almost as much trouble as his client.
Hamilton Burger’s demeanor indicated the solemnity of one who is officiating at a trial which can only result in the death sentence.
“People versus Susan Fisher,” Judge Elmer said.
“Ready for the People,” Harrison Flanders said.
“Ready for the defendant,” Mason announced.
Flanders proceeded with the deft skill of a veteran trial attorney to lay the foundation of the case. He introduced evidence of the crime; the discovery of the body of Ken Lowry within a very short time after he had met his death; the introduction of maps and diagrams showing the exact location of the discovery; the identification of the body by a member of the family; the background of his employment by the Mojave Monarch Gold Mining and Exploration Company; the fact that this company was a subsidiary of the Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company.
When Flanders had finished with the last of the preliminary witnesses he made a bold stroke.
“Call Endicott Campbell to the stand,” he said.
Endicott Campbell came forward, was sworn, gave his name, residence, and his occupation as the General Manager of the Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company.
“Did you know Kenneth Lowry, the decedent?” Flanders asked.
“I had met him briefly shortly before his death.”
“Were you familiar with the company, which to save time, we shall call the Mojave Monarch Mining Company?”
“In a general way.”
“What do you mean by that answer?”
“The company of which I am manager sent remittances to the Mojave Monarch Mining Company for the purpose of underwriting operations.”
“Do you know how much money had been sent this subsidiary during the last year?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred and seven thousand, five hundred and thirty-six dollars and eighty-five cents.”