"Yes."
"Did you see the letter?"
"I didn't read it, but he told me what was in it."
"What did he tell you was in it?"
Mason said, "I object, your Honor, on the ground that it's not the best evidence; that it's hearsay and is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial."
Judge Knox said, "I will sustain the objection."
"What," asked Shoemaker, frowning, "did your grandfather do or say immediately after receiving the letter?"
"Same objection," Mason said.
"I won't admit any statement as to what was in the letter nor whom it was from," Judge Knox ruled, "but I will admit, as part of the Res Gestae, any statements that might have been made by Mr. Brownley as to what he intended to do or where he intended to go."
Philip Brownley said in a low voice, "He said he had to go down to Los Angeles harbor at once to meet Julia Branner. I understood him to say he was going to meet her aboard his yacht."
"Move to strike out the part about meeting Julia Branner," Mason said, "as not responsive to question, incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial and hearsay."
"I will reserve a ruling," Judge Knox said, "but I'll leave it in if subsequent testimony shows it to be what I consider part of the Res Gestae."
"It's too remote to be part of the Res Gestae," Mason objected.
"I don't think so, Mr. Mason. However, that will depend somewhat on the evidence. You may renew your motion later on if, after the evidence is all in, it appears to be too remote."
"Did he say anything else?" Shoemaker asked.
"Yes. He said the she-devil had kept his son's watch for years and now she was willing to let it go."
"Move to strike that out," Mason said, "as not being part of the Res Gestae and as being an attempt to show the contents of a written document by parol; as hearsay, incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial."
"Motion is granted. It will be stricken," Judge Knox ruled. "It is not part of the Res Gestae."
"What did your grandfather do?" Shoemaker asked.
"He dressed, went to his car and drove out of the garage about two o'clock."
"You're acquainted with Perry Mason, the attorney who is representing the defendant?"
"Yes."
"Did you see him on that same evening, or rather on the evening of the fourth?"
"Yes. It was around eleven o'clock, between eleven o'clock and midnight."
"Did you talk with him?"
"Yes."
"Did you discuss your grandfather's will with him?"
"Yes."
"Did he discuss a conversation he had had with your grandfather?"
"In a way, yes."
Mason said, "Your Honor, I object to an attempt to prove that conversation until proof has been made of the corpus delicti."
Shoemaker said, "Your Honor, I'm not going any farther into the conversation at this time. Later on I expect to prove that Perry Mason learned on the evening of the fourth that Renwold Brownley intended to execute on the morning of the fifth documents which would transfer the bulk of his estate to his granddaughter, Janice Brownley; that Mason communicated that information to his client, and that this furnished the motive for murder. However, I am not going into it at the present time. You may cross-examine, Mr. Mason."
Mason said, "You were waiting for me when I left your grandfather's house?"
"Yes."
"How long had you been waiting?"
"Only a few minutes."
"You knew when I left the room where I had been talking with your grandfather and went to my car, didn't you?" Mason asked.
"Yes. I heard you leave the room."
"And then you went out to stand in the driveway and wait for me. Is that right?"
"Yes."
"But," Mason said, "your clothes were soaking wet. It was raining hard, but not hard enough to wet you to the skin in the few seconds which clasped between the time I left the room where I was with your grandfather and the time you met me in the driveway. How do you account for that?"
Young Brownley lowered his eyes and said nothing.
"Answer the question," the Court ordered.
"I don't know," Brownley said.
"Isn't it a fact," Mason asked him, "that you had been standing out in the rain before I left the house? Isn't it a fact that you could hear much, if not all, of what was said in my interview with your grandfather? Weren't you listening outside one of the windows?"
Brownley hesitated. "You answer that question," Mason thundered, getting to his feet, "and tell the truth."
"Yes," young Brownley said after a moment, "I stood outside of the window and tried to hear what was being said. I couldn't hear it all, but I heard some of it."
"So," Mason said, "you knew then that your grandfather was going to execute these documents in the morning, documents which would irrevocably place the bulk of his estate in the hands of the young woman who was living there in the house as Janice Brownley."
"Yes," Philip Brownley said slowly.
"So," Mason went on, "so far as motive is concerned, you had a motive for murdering your grandfather. In other words, you stood to profit by his death. If he died before those documents were executed, your inheritance would have been one-half of the estate, in the event Janice Brownley was really a granddaughter. And if it could be proved that she was not the granddaughter, your inheritance would have been the entire estate. Is that right?"
Shoemaker jumped to his feet. "Your Honor," he shouted, "I object! The question is argumentative, irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial. It's not proper cross-examination. It calls for a conclusion of the witness upon matters of law."
"I am asking it," Mason said, "only to show bias on the part of the witness."
"I think," Judge Knox ruled, "that the question is argumentative and calls for a conclusion. If you want to prove it, you'll have to do it by asking the witness how much of the conversation was heard, just what was said, and leave the legal effect of it for the Court to determine."
Mason shrugged his shoulders and said, "I have no further questions of the witness."
Shoemaker hesitated as though debating the advisability of asking further questions on re-direct, then shook his head and said, "The witness is excused. Call Gordon Bixler."
Gordon Bixler, a bony-faced individual of about forty-five, wearing a gray business suit, took the witness stand and testified that his name was Gordon Bixler; that he was a yachtsman, was the owner of the yacht Resolute; that on the night of the murder he had been on a trip to Catalina in his yacht; that he had returned in a driving rain and had telephoned from the clubhouse for his Filipino boy to meet him with a car; that he had then attended to certain details in connection with the mooring of his yacht and leaving it in condition for the next cruise; that his Filipino boy had not shown up; that he had waited for more than an hour and had heard an automobile in the road near the clubhouse; that he had gone out to investigate, thinking his Filipino boy had become confused, since he had only been at the Yacht Club on one previous occasion; that he had started walking toward the headlights of the automobile whose motor he had heard, and had observed that the car was being driven very slowly; that, while he was watching it, a woman who wore a white rain coat walked out from the side of the road; that the car stopped and the young woman stepped to the running board, and spoke for a few moments to the driver of the car; and thereupon the woman stepped back to the ground and the car ran slowly on down the road and had almost reached the witness when it turned into a side street, over to another road, speeded up, turned and circled back; that it had almost reached its original position when he saw the young woman in the white rain coat step out from the shadows, and jump to the running board of the car; that by this time the witness thought his Filipino boy had had trouble of some sort and thought that he might be able to get the man in the car to give him a lift; that he started walking toward the car and suddenly saw several stabbing flashes and heard the rapid reports of a gun; that he thought there were five shots in all, but there might have been six; that he saw the woman in the white coat jump from the running board and run to the shadows. A Chevrolet automobile, which had been parked in the shadows of a crossroad, roared into motion and swept down the road away from him at high speed. The witness ran to the other automobile. A man's body was lying with the left arm and shoulder and the head hung over the left-hand door of the car. Blood was running from bullet wounds down the outside of the car and collecting in a pool on the left-hand running board. The man was Renwold C. Brownley and was dead. The witness had met Brownley on several occasions, and there was no chance he could be mistaken.