“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“That information is a very closely guarded trade secret, Mr. Mason.”
“But I’m your attorney.”
“Quite.”
“Look here,” Mason said, “are you British?”
“No.”
“American?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been working for a British company?”
“Five or six years.”
“You have become quite British.”
“There are certain mannerisms, Mr. Mason, which the trade comes to expect of the representatives of a company such as ours.”
“And there are certain mannerisms which an American jury expects to find in an American citizen,” Mason told him.
“If a jury should feel you’d cultivated a British manner, you might have reason to regret your accent and cool, impersonal detachment.”
Jefferson’s lip seemed to curl slightly. “I would have nothing but contempt for a jury that would let personal considerations such as those influence its judgment.”
“That would break the jurors’ hearts,” Mason told him.
Jefferson said, “We may as well understand each other at the outset, Mr. Mason. I govern my actions according to principle. I would rather die than yield in a matter of principle.”
“All right,” Mason said. “Have it your own way. It’s your funeral. Did you see Baxter again?”
“No, sir, I didn’t. After that, arrangements were completed through the Paris office.”
“Irving?” Mason asked.
“I don’t think it was Irving, Mr. Mason. I think it was one of the other representatives.”
“You read about the arrival of the cruise ship and Baxter’s supposed suicide?”
“I did, indeed, Mr. Mason.”
“And did you make any comment to the authorities?”
“Certainly not.”
“You knew he was carrying a small fortune in diamonds?”
“I assumed that a small fortune in diamonds had been delivered to him through our Paris office. I had no means, of course, of knowing what he had done with them.”
“You didn’t make any suggestions to the authorities?”
“Certainly not. Our business dealings are highly confidential.”
“But you did discuss his death with your partner, Irving?”
“Not a partner, Mr. Mason. A representative of the company, a personal friend but—”
“All right, your associate,” Mason corrected.
“Yes, I discussed it with him.”
“Did he have any ideas?”
“None. Except that there were certain suspicious circumstances in connection with the entire situation.”
“It occurred to you that the whole thing might have been part of a smuggling plot?”
“I prefer not to amplify that statement, Mr. Mason. I can simply say that there were certain suspicious circumstances in connection with the entire transaction.”
“And you discussed those with Irving?”
“As a representative of the company talking to an associate, I did. I would prefer, however, not to go into detail as to what I said. You must remember, Mr. Mason, that I am here not in an individual but a representative capacity.”
“You may be in this country in a representative capacity,” Mason said, “but don’t ever forget that you’re here in this jail in a purely individual capacity.”
“Oh, quite,” Jefferson said.
“I understand police found diamonds in your office,” Mason went on.
Jefferson nodded.
“Where did those diamonds come from?”
“Mr. Mason, I haven’t the faintest idea. I am in my office approximately six hours out of the twenty-four. I believe the building provides a scrubwoman with a master key. The janitor also has a master key. People come and go through that office. Police even told me that there was someone trying to break into the office, or that someone had broken into the office.”
“A girl,” Mason said.
“I understand it was a young woman, yes.”
“Do you have any idea who this woman was?”
“No. Certainly not!”
“Do you know any young women here in the city?” Jefferson hesitated.
“Do you?” Mason prodded.
Jefferson met his eyes. “No.”
“You’re acquainted with no young woman?”
“No.”
“Would you perhaps be trying to shield someone?”
“Why should I try to shield someone?”
“I am not asking you why at the moment. I am asking you if you are.”
“No.”
“You understand it could be a very serious matter if you should try to falsify any of the facts?”
“Isn’t it a rule of law in this country,” Jefferson countered, “that the prosecution must prove the defendant guilty beyond all reasonable doubt?”
Mason nodded.
“They can’t do it,” Jefferson said confidently.
“You may not have another chance to tell me your story,” Mason warned.
“I’ve told it.”
“There is no girl?”
“No.”
“Weren’t you writing to some young woman here before you left South Africa?”
Again there was a perceptible hesitancy, then Jefferson looked him in the eyes and said, “No.”
“Police told you there was some young woman who broke into your office?”
“Someone who opened the door with a key.”
“Had you given your key to any woman?”
“No. Certainly not.”
Mason said, “Look here, if there’s anyone you want protected, tell me the whole story. I’ll try to protect that person as far as possible. After all, I’m representing you. I’m trying to do what is for your best interests. Now, don’t put yourself in such a position that you’re going to have to try to deceive your attorney. Do you understand what that can lead to?”
“I understand.”
“And you are protecting no one?”
“No one.”
“The district attorney’s office feels that it has some evidence against you, otherwise it wouldn’t be proceeding in a case of this kind.”
“I suppose a district attorney can be mistaken as well as anyone else.”
“Better sometimes,” Mason said. “You’re not being very helpful.”
“What help can I give, Mr. Mason? Suppose you should walk into your office tomorrow morning and find the police there. Suppose they told you that they had uncovered stolen property in your office. Suppose I should ask you to tell me the entire story. What could you tell me?”
“I’d try to answer your questions.”
“I have answered your questions, Mr. Mason.”
“I have reason to believe there’s some young woman here in the city whom you know.”
“There is no one.”
Mason got to his feet. “Well,” he told the young man, “it’s up to you.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Mason. I think you’ll find that it’s up to you.”
“You’re probably right, at that,” Mason told him, and signaled the guard that the interview was over.
Chapter 7
Mason unlocked the door of his private office. Della Street looked up from her work. “How did it go, Chief?”
Mason made a gesture of throwing something away.
“Not talking?” Della Street asked.
“Talking,” Mason said, “but it doesn’t make sense. He’s protecting some woman.”
“Why?”
“That,” Mason said, “is something we’re going to have to find out. Get the cameras, Della?”
“Yes. Cameras, lights, films, tripod—everything.”
“We’re going into the photographic business,” Mason said. “Tell Gertie we don’t want to be disturbed, no matter what happens.”
Della Street started to pick up th
e connecting telephone to the outer office, then hesitated. “Gertie is going to make something out of this!” she said.
Mason frowned thoughtfully. “You have a point there,” he said.
“With her romantic disposition, she will get ideas in her head that you’ll never get out with a club.”
“All right,” Mason decided. “Don’t let her know I’m in. We’ll just go into the law library and—do you think you could help me tilt that desk over on its side, Della?”
“I can try.”
“Good. We’ll just go into the library, close and lock the door.”
“Suppose Gertie should want me for something? Can’t we tell her what we’re doing so she can—”
Mason shook his head. “I don’t want anyone to know about this, Della.”
Della went through the motions of throwing something in the wastebasket. “There goes my good name,” she said.
“You’ll need to stay only to help me get the desk over on its side, and you can fix up the lighting. We’ll lock the door from the law library to the outer office and leave the door to this office open. You can hear the phone if Gertie rings.”
“That’s all right,” Della Street said, “but suppose she comes in for something?”
“Well, if the door’s open,” Mason said, “she’ll see that we’re photographing something.”
“Her curiosity is as bad as her romanticism,” Della said.
“Does she talk?” Mason asked.
“I wish I knew the answer to that one, Chief. She must talk to that boy friend of hers. You couldn’t keep Gertie quiet with a muzzle. I doubt that she talks to anyone else.”
“Okay,” Mason said, “we’ll take a chance. Come on, Della. Let’s get that desk on its side and get the floodlights rigged up.”
“Here’s a chart,” Della Street said, “giving all the exposure factors. I told the man at the camera store we wanted to copy some documents. You have to change your exposure factor when you do real close-up photography. He suggested that we use film packs with the camera where you focus on the ground glass. The fingerprint camera is supposed to be a self-contained unit, with lights and every—”
“I understand,” Mason interrupted. “I want to get the wad of chewing gum photographed in place on the bottom of the desk, then I want to get close-ups showing the fingerprints. We can get the photographer to enlarge the fingerprints from these photographs in case the fingerprint camera doesn’t do a good job.”
“The fingerprint camera seems to be pretty near—” She paused suddenly.
Mason laughed. “Foolproof?”
“Well,” Della Street said, “that’s what the man at the camera store said.”
“All right,” Mason told her, “let’s go. We’ll take photographs at different exposures. You have plenty of film packs?”
“Heavens, yes! I figured you’d want to be sure you had the job done, and I got enough film so you can take all the pictures you want at all kinds of different exposures.”
“That’s fine,” Mason told her.
Della Street took one end of the typewriter desk, Mason the other. “We’ll have to move it out from the wall,” Mason said. “Now tilt it back, Della. It’ll be heavy just before it gets to the floor. You think you can—?”
“Good heavens, yes, Chief. It’s not heavy.”
“The drawers are full of stationery, and that typewriter—We could take some of the things out and lighten it.”
“No, no, let’s go. It’s all right.”
They eased the desk back to the floor.
“All right,” Mason said, “give me a hand with the lights and the tripod. We’ll get this camera set up and focused.”
“I have a magnifying glass,” Della Street said. “They seem to think that on the critical focusing necessary for close-ups it will help.”
“Good girl,” Mason told her. “Let’s see what we can do. We’ll want an unbalanced cross-lighting, and since light varies inversely as the square of the distance, we’ll space these lights accordingly.”
Mason first took a series of pictures with the fingerprint camera, then got the lights plugged in and adjusted, the studio camera placed on the tripod and properly focused. He used a tape measure to determine the position of the lights, then slipped a film pack into the camera, regarded the wad of chewing gum thoughtfully.
“That’s going to be fine,” Della Street said. “How did _ you know about using unbalanced cross-lighting to bring out the ridges?”
“Cross-examining photographers,” Mason said, “plus a study of books on photography. A lawyer has to know a little something about everything. Don’t you notice Photographic Evidence by Scott over there?” Mason indicated the book bound in red leather.
“That’s right,” she said. “I remember seeing you studying that from time to time. You used some of his stuff in that automobile case, didn’t you?”
“Uh huh,” Mason said. “It’s surprising how much there is to know about photography. Now, Della, I’m going to start with this lens at f11, taking a photograph at a twenty-fifth of a second. Then we’ll take one at a tenth of a second, then one at a second. Then I’ll use the cable release and we’ll take one at two seconds. Then we’ll try f16, run through the exposures all over again, then take another batch at f22.”
“All right,” Della Street said. “I’ll keep notes of the different exposures.”
Mason started taking the pictures, pulling the tabs out of the film pack, tearing them off, dropping them into the wastebasket.
“Oh oh,” Della Street said. “There’s the phone. That’s Gertie calling.”
She made a dash for Mason’s private office. Mason continued taking pictures.
Della Street was back after a moment. “Walter Irving wants you to call just as soon as you come in.”
Mason nodded.
“Gertie asked if you were in yet, and I lied like a trooper,” Della Street said.
“Okay, Della. Walter Irving didn’t say what he wanted, did he?”
“He said he wanted to know if you’d been able to get any information out of Duane Jefferson about the woman in the case.”
Mason said, “As soon as we get finished here, Della, tell Paul Drake I want to put a shadow on Irving.”
“You suspect him?”
“Not exactly. The policy of this office is to protect our client and to hell with the rest of them.”
“What’s the client doing?”
“Sitting tight. Says he knows nothing about the girl who broke into the office, that he doesn’t know any girl here, hasn’t been corresponding with anyone, and all that.”
“You think he has?”
“That wasn’t just a casual visit that Mae Wallis paid to their office.”
“You’ve decided she was the girl?”
“Oh, not officially. I’d deny it to the police. But where did the diamonds in the chewing gum come from?”
“Chief, why would she plant a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds and then keep a couple of diamonds with her and conceal them in a wad of chewing gum?”
“I can give you an answer,” Mason said, “but it may not be the answer.”
“What is it?”
“Suppose she had been given some gems to plant. She must have had them wrapped in tissue paper in her purse. She had to work in a hurry and probably became somewhat alarmed. Something happened to make her suspicious. She realized that she had been detected.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because she roughed up the office, making it appear she was looking for something. Otherwise she’d have slipped in, planted the diamonds and left.”
“Then you think the diamonds that she put in the chewing gum were ones she had overlooked when she was making the plant?”
“I said it was an answer. After she got established as a typist in our office, she had a breathing spell. She opened her purse to make sure she hadn’t overlooked anything, and found several of the diamonds. She knew
that police were on the job and that there was a good chance she might be picked up, questioned, and perhaps searched. So she fastened the diamonds to the underside of the desk.”
“I keep thinking those ‘Prince Charming’ letters have something to do with it, Chief.”
Mason nodded. “So do I. Perhaps she planted the diamonds in the office and at the same time deliberately planted the letters in the restroom.”
“She could have done that, all right,” Della Street admitted. “There’s the phone again.”
She gathered her skirts and again sprinted for Mason’s private office. Mason continued to take photographs while she answered the phone and returned.
“What is it?” Mason asked.
“I have to announce,” she said, “that Gertie is just a little suspicious.”
“Yes?” Mason asked.
“Yes. She wants to know why it’s taking me so long to answer the phone.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Told her I was doing some copy work and I didn’t want to stop in the middle of a sentence.”
Mason snapped out the floodlights. “All right, Della. We’ll quit. We have enough pictures. Tell Paul Drake I want shadows put on Walter Irving.”
Chapter 8
A few mornings later Mason was scanning the papers on his desk. “Well, I see that the grand jury has now filed an indictment, charging Duane Jefferson with first-degree murder.”
“Why the indictment?” Della Street asked.
“The district attorney can proceed against a defendent in either of two ways. He can file a complaint or have someone swear to a complaint. Then the Court holds a preliminary hearing. At that time the defendant can cross-examine the witnesses. If the Court makes an order binding the defendant over, the district attorney then files an information and the case is brought on to trial before a jury.
“However, the district attorney can, if he wishes, present witnesses to the grand jury. The grand jury then returns an indictment, and the transcript of the testimony of the witnesses is delivered to the defendant. In that case, there is no opportunity for counsel for the defense to cross-examine the witnesses until they get to court.
“Now, in this case against Duane Jefferson, the main witness before the grand jury seems to have been Yvonne Manco, who tells a great story about how her lover-boy, Munroe Baxter, was rubbed out by some nasty people who wanted to steal the diamonds he was smuggling. Then there is the testimony of a police officer that a large portion of those diamonds was found in the office occupied by Duane Jefferson.”
The Case of the Terrified Typist Page 6