“Lord, no!” Mason told her. “He’s just starting. That was the idea back of all this, to get the district attorney started.”
“Well,” Drake said, “you’ve got him started now.”
Charles Whitmore Dail was waiting for Mason at his hotel. “May I see you for a few moments. Counselor?” he asked.
“You can if you have that ten thousand dollars,” Mason told him, grinning.
“I have it,” Dail said, “and there’s another matter I wish to take up with you.”
“Come on up,” Mason invited.
When they were seated in the lawyer’s room, Dail looked significantly at Della Street and said, “In addition to this settlement I am making with Mrs. Moar, Mason, I had another matter I wanted to discuss with you.”
“All right,” Mason said, “go ahead and discuss it. I have no secrets from Della. Let’s get this ten thousand dollars out of the way first.”
“You have an agreement prepared?” Dail asked.
Mason nodded, and passed over a typewritten paper which contained Mrs. Moar’s signature. Dail studied it a moment, then folded it, slipped it in his pocket, opened a wallet, took out ten one-thousand-dollar bills and passed them over to Mason.
“Go ahead,” Mason told him.
“It’s about my daughter, Celinda.”
“What about her?”
“She has been subpoenaed as a witness in this case. It’s rather a minor matter. She happened to see Mrs. Newberry running down the stairs from the upper deck. Mrs. Newberry was carrying a chamois-skin money belt in her hand, and her gown was soaking wet.”
“How long was this after the whistle sounded its five blasts?” Mason asked.
“Celinda doesn’t remember clearly,” Dail said.
“What did you want to see me about?” Mason asked. “If the district attorney has subpoenaed Celinda, she should talk with him, not me.”
“I wanted to discuss Celinda’s temperament with you,” Dail said. “The child is rather nervous. She’s never been in court before and she’s read in the newspapers something of your vigorous cross-examination of Aileen Fell. I thought that perhaps we might reach some arrangement, Mr. Mason, by which Celinda wouldn’t be subjected to such a grilling cross-examination.”
Mason said, “What agreement did you have in mind?”
“Well,” Dail said, “of course the matter is rather delicate and I wouldn’t want you to misunderstand what I have in mind, but as I understand it, five thousand dollars of the money I have just paid goes toward your fees, five thousand goes to Mrs. Moar. Now, it seems to me that the very clever and adroit representation you are giving Mrs. Moar should entitle you to a larger fee. And, because she was a fellow passenger on the ship, I might be willing to interest myself somewhat in her behalf.”
“You mean to the extent of adding to my fees?” Mason asked.
“Yes,” Dail said.
Mason’s mouth twisted in a fighting grin. “I think I understand you perfectly, Dail,” he said, “and it happens I’m very glad your daughter is going to be a witness.”
“Why?” Dail said. “I thought the fact that she had seen Mrs. Moar carrying that money belt might... well, might be damaging.”
Mason said, “Never mind that. When Celinda gets on the stand, I’m entitled to show, by way of cross-examination, her bias toward the parties.
“I happen to know that Celinda found out from Belle that she’d graduated from the University of Southern California; that she sent a wireless to Rooney asking him to look up a Belle Newberry who had graduated from the University of Southern California. With that to go on, it didn’t take Rooney long to find out that her stepfather was Carl Moar. Celinda wanted to humiliate Belle Newberry. She thought the best way to do it would be to have detectives waiting at the gangplank to take Moar into custody. I have reason to believe she had made all the arrangements. Now then, on cross-examination I am entitled to show all of that in order to show bias on the part of the witness.”
“But,” Dail said, “I don’t see what that’s going to gain you. After all, it’s rather petty, it certainly doesn’t affect Mrs. Moar—”
“No,” Mason said, “but it affects Belle. When Roy Hungerford learns that Celinda was on that ship posing as a friend of Belle Newberry, asking her to attend week-end parties after the ship had docked, and all the time planning to humiliate her at the gangplank by showing that her stepfather was an embezzler, Hungerford will have a very accurate appraisal of just what your daughter considers fair play.”
“Oh, I say,” Dail protested, his face flushing, “isn’t that hitting below the belt?”
Mason said, “Dail, when I’m fighting for a client, I hit where it’s going to hurt the most. You might tell Celinda what to expect in the line of cross-examination.”
“I’d like very much to avoid this,” Dail said.
Mason got to his feet and crossed to the door. “I feel quite certain that you would,” he said. “In fact, Mr. Dail, thinking back on it, I have a very clear recollection of the charming urbanity with which you signified your willingness to discuss a monetary settlement with Moar. Knowing the plans which you had in the back of your mind, I can only call your attention to the old proverb about chickens coming home to roost.”
Dail tried to make his exit dignified. He turned on the threshold and said, “You can’t get away with it, Mason. You’ll find that I draw some water around here. Good night!”
He slammed the door.
Mason grinned across at Della Street.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Chief.”
“Why not?”
“Celinda will get in touch with Roy Hungerford and bring things to a head tonight. She’s clever, and she wants him. She’s a shrewd campaigner.”
“That,” Mason said, “is exactly what I figured she’d do. Now, I happen to know that of all the things Roy Hungerford detests, a woman who tries to force things is his pet abomination. Designing females have been trying to give him the rush act ever since he was old enough to wear long pants. If he’s hesitating between Celinda, who’s in his set, and Belle, who’s not, Celinda will wreck all of her chances trying to rush things-and the beautiful part of it is that it will be all her doing.”
Della Street said, “Well, I hope she cooks her goose to a cinder!”
Mason opened the door to Paul Drake’s room and said, “Paul, I have something else for you.”
“What is it?” Drake asked.
“You said that Morgan Eves was acquitted of murder about two months ago in Los Angeles?”
“Yes.”
“And,” Mason went on, “Baldwin Van Densie defended him?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Mason said, “Moar was on a jury in Los Angeles about two months ago. It was a murder case. Van Densie was defending. Moar took a dislike to Van Densie, claimed he was putting up a sell-out defense. The D. A. had a pushover with the other jurors, but Moar went to the bat in the jury room and whipped them into line. You might have your Los Angeles office look up the records and see if Moar was on Morgan Eves’s jury.”
The detective twisted his forehead into a frown. “Gosh, Perry, if that was the case, then Eves would be bound to Moar by a debt of gratitude, and if Evelyn Whiting had been going with Moar for some time, she must have... Why? dammit, Perry, as soon as she found out Moar was on the jury, trying the man she loved, she’d have brought all sorts of pressure to bear to get an acquittal.”
Mason grinned and said, “You’re doing fine, Paul. Go ahead and put through that call. And in the meantime, I’m on my way to the morgue where I will loudly proclaim that the body is not that of Carl Moar.”
“You mean to say they’ve identified the wrong body?” Drake asked.