The Case of the Curious Bride пм-4
Page 16
"I will," said Perry Mason.
Lucas showed surprise. Judge Munroe frowned thoughtfully. There was a rustle of motion in the crowded courtroom. "I also desire," said John Lucas, glancing at the Court, "to interrogate this witness as to the identity of a person who was buried in February of nineteen hundred and twentynine under the name of Gregory Lorton."
Perry Mason's smile became a grin. "In view of our stipulation," he said, "that the Gregory Lorton who was married to the defendant in this case was alive at that date, it becomes entirely immaterial in this action who it was that was buried under the name of Gregory Lorton. If you wish to pursue that inquiry in a criminal action, you have your right to do so. And, unfortunately, you also have the right to pursue that inquiry by giving out statements to the newspapers intimating that you suspect this defendant of having poisoned that individual."
Lucas whirled, his face red. "That insinuation is unjustified!" he shouted. "You can't…"
Judge Munroe's gavel banged on his desk.
"Counselor," he said to Perry Mason, "your objection is well taken. Your comments were entirely uncalled for."
"I apologize to the Court," said Perry Mason.
"And to counsel," suggested Lucas.
Perry Mason remained significantly silent.
Munroe looked from face to face. There was, perhaps, the faint twinkle of humor in his eyes. "Proceed," he said.
"That," said Lucas, "is our case," and sat down.
Perry Mason said, "Call Mrs. Bessie Holeman to the witness stand."
A young woman of perhaps thirtytwo years of age, with tired eyes, strode to the witness stand, held up her right hand and was sworn.
"Did you," asked Perry Mason, "go to the inquest which was held over the remains of Gregory Moxley, alias Gregory Lorton, the man who was killed on the sixteenth day of June of this year?"
"I did."
"Did you see the remains?"
"I did."
"Did you recognize them?"
"Yes."
"Who was the man?"
"He was the man whom I married on the fifth of January, 1925."
The spectators gasped with surprise. Lucas half rose from his seat, sat down, then jumped up again. He hesitated a moment, then said slowly. "Your Honor, this line of testimony takes me completely by surprise. However, I move to strike out the answer as not responsive to the question, as incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. It makes no difference how many prior marriages this man, Moxley, might have had before he married Rhoda Montaine. He might have had two dozen previous wives living. Rhoda Montaine could have filed suit for annulment during his lifetime. She did not. With his death, she becomes a widow. In other words, her marriage is not subject to collateral attack."
Perry Mason smiled. "The law of this state provides that a subsequent marriage contracted by any person during the life of a former husband or wife of such person with any person other than such former husband or wife is illegal and void from the beginning. In the Estate of Gregorson, 16 °Cal., 61, it is held that a void marriage is subject to collateral attack.
"Obviously, Gregory Lorton could not enter into a valid marriage with Rhoda Montaine as long as Lorton's prior wife was living Therefore, the previous marriage of this defendant, being null and void, was no bar to a subsequent valid marriage to Carl Montaine."
"Motion to strike is denied," said Judge Munroe.
"Did you ever secure a divorce from the man who has been variously described as Gregory Moxley or Gregory Lorton subsequent to the fifth day of January, 1925?" asked Perry Mason.
"Yes."
Perry Mason unfolded a legal paper, presented it to Lucas with a flourish. "I show to counsel," he said, "a certified copy of the decree of divorce, and call to the attention of Court and counsel the fact that the decree of divorce was subsequent to the marriage of this defendant to Gregory Lorton. I offer this certified decree in evidence."
"It will be received," Judge Munroe said.
"Crossexamine," announced Perry Mason.
Lucas approached the witness, stared steadily at her and said, "Are you certain of the identity of this man you saw in the morgue?"
"Yes."
Lucas shrugged his shoulders, said to Judge Munroe, "That is all."
The judge leaned over his desk and said to the clerk of the court, "Bring me that one hundred and sixtieth California Reports, and volume sixteen of California Jurisprudence."
There was a restless silence in the courtroom while the clerk stepped into the Judge's chambers, returning with two books which the judge consulted thoughtfully. Judge Munroe looked up from the books and disposed of the case with a single sentence. "Judgment," he said, "must be entered for the defendant. The petition to annul the marriage is denied. Court is adjourned."
Perry Mason turned and caught the eye of the elder Montaine, an eye that was glittering and frosty. There was no expression whatever upon the face of the older man. John Lucas looked crushed. Carl Montaine seemed rather dazed, but C. Phillip Montaine retained his poise. It was impossible to tell whether he was surprised by the decision.
The courtroom buzzed with activity. Newspaper men sprinted for telephones. People milled into curious throngs, every one talking at once. Perry Mason said to the deputy who had Rhoda Montaine in custody, "I want to take my client into the jury room for consultation. You can sit in the door if you wish." He took Rhoda Montaine's arm, piloted her into the jury room, held a chair for her, sat across a table from her and smiled reassuringly.
"What does it all mean?" she asked.
"It means," said Perry Mason, "that Judge Munroe has held your marriage to Carl Montaine absolutely valid and binding."
"Then what?" she asked.
"Then," said Perry Mason, pulling the complaint from his pocket, "you are going to sue him for divorce on the grounds of extreme cruelty, in that he has falsely accused you of murder, in that he has betrayed the confidence you have made to him, in that he has, on numerous times and occasions, treated you in a cruel and inhuman manner. I have listed some of those times and occasions in this complaint. All you have to do is to sign it."
Tears came to her eyes. "But," she said, "I don't want to divorce him. Don't you understand, I make allowances for his character. I tell you, I love him."
Perry Mason leaned close to her, so that his eyes were staring steadily into hers. "Rhoda," he said in a low voice, "you've told your story. You've given the district attorney a signed statement. You can't deviate from that story now. You've got to stand or fall by it. So far, the district attorney hasn't been able to uncover the person who actually did stand on the doorstep and ring the doorbell of Moxley's apartment while Moxley was being murdered, but I have uncovered him. I have uncovered two of them. One of them may be lying. On the other hand, both may be telling the truth. The testimony of either one will get you the death penalty."
She stared at him with consternation in her eyes.
"One of them," Perry Mason went on, "is Oscar Pender, a man from Centerville who was trying to get money from Moxley. This money Pender was to get for his sister. Moxley had swindled Pender's sister out of her savings."
"I don't know anything about him," Rhoda Montaine said. "Who's the other one?"
Mason's eyes bored into hers. He said slowly, "The other one is Doctor Claude Millsap. He couldn't sleep. He knew of your appointment. He got up and drove to Moxley's house. You were there. The lights were out. He rang the bell. Your car was parked around the corner on a side street."
Rhoda Montaine was white to the lips. "Claude Millsap!" she said, in a whisper.
"You got yourself in this mess," Mason told her, "by not doing what I told you. Now you're going to follow instructions. We've won that annulment case. Your husband can't testify against you. The district attorney, however, has given the newspapers signed statements covering your husband's testimony. He's held your husband as a material witness, where I couldn't talk with him; but he's let every newspaper man in town talk with him. No
w then, we've got to combat that propaganda. We're going to file this divorce. I've drawn it on the theory that your husband was guilty of cruelty in telling a bunch of lies to the district attorney, lies that linked you with a murder of which you are innocent."
"Then what?" she asked.
"Then," he said, "it's going to make some nice copy for the newspapers, but the main thing is that I'm going to slap a subpoena on Carl Montaine, forcing him to attend at the taking of a deposition. Before the district attorney's office realizes what has happened, they'll find that I've got Carl sewed up. If he doesn't change his story, you may get big alimony. If he does, it's going to look like hell for the D.A.'s office."
There was fear in her eyes as she asked, "Can they use this deposition against me in the murder case?"
"No."
"But," she said, "I don't want a divorce from him. I know he has weaknesses. I love him in spite of those weaknesses. I want to make a man out of him. He's had too much coddling. He's been taught to lean on his father and his ancestors. You can't change a man over night. You can't kick the props out from under him and expect him to stand on his own feet all at once. You can't…"
"Listen," he told her, "I don't care how you feel about Carl. Right at present, you're accused of murder. The district attorney is going to try and get the death penalty and back of the district attorney is a man who has a great deal of intelligence, a great deal of poise, and who is utterly ruthless. He's willing to spend any amount of money that is necessary to get you convicted and get you a death penalty."
"Who do you mean?" she asked.
"C. Phillip Montaine," he told her.
"Why," she said, "he doesn't approve of me, but he wouldn't…"
The officer in the doorway coughed suggestively. "Time's up," he said.
Perry Mason shoved the divorce complaint in front of her, held out his fountain pen. "Sign on that line," he said.
Her eyes stared appealingly into his. "Why," she said, "he's Carl's father! He wouldn't…"
"Sign," Mason said. The officer moved forward. Rhoda Montaine took the fountain pen. The fingers of her hand, brushing against the back of Mason's hand, were cold. She dashed off her signature, raised tearmoistened eyes to the officer. "I am ready," she said.
Chapter 17
Perry Mason's fingers drummed on the edge of his desk. His eyes, steady in their cold concentration, rested on Paul Drake's face. "Your man picked them up at the railroad depot, Paul?"
"Yes. He found them about ten minutes before train time. He took the same train they did, wired me from a suburban stop. I got busy on the telephone and had operatives board the train at different points to give him reinforcements. We've kept the pair in sight ever since they started."
"I want them kept on the run," Mason said.
"That's what Della Street told me. I wasn't certain I got the message straight. I wanted to find out just what it was you wanted."
Mason said slowly, "I want them hounded, I want them frightened, I want them kept on the move. Every time they go to a place and register under assumed names, I want those names. I want photographic copies of the hotel register."
"You want them to know that detectives are on their trail?"
"Yes, but I want it done cleverly. I don't want them to think detectives are too close on their trail. I want them to think detectives are just blundering around, covering the various hotels with descriptions and that sort of stuff."
The detective smoked silently for several seconds, then blurted out, "I think you're crazy, Perry!"
"Why?"
"It's none of my business," Drake said slowly, "but this man, Pender, must have been on the scene at the time of the murder. He telephoned his sister and admitted that he rang the doorbell of Moxley's apartment at around quarter past two in the morning. He had a motive for killing Moxley. He had undoubtedly been threatening Moxley. Now, if, instead of getting this man on the run, you should have him arrested and turn the newspaper boys on him, he'd make a lot of favorable publicity for Rhoda Montaine."
"Then what?" Mason asked.
"Then the district attorney would be in a spot. You could demand that Pender be arrested. You could demand that the district attorney call him as a witness."
"Then what?"
"Why then," Drake said, "you'd have him before the jury and you could rip him to pieces. You could show that he came here to get money out of Moxley; that he did it by making threats. You could make him either admit that he was on the scene of the murder at about the time it happened, or else you could impeach him by showing the conversation he had with his sister. You could show the way he treated my operative."
Mason smiled. "Yes," he said, "I could do all those things. For a while I'd be sitting pretty. Then we'd go to trial. The D.A. would put Pender on the witness stand, let Pender admit that he called up Moxley and tried to get money out of Moxley, let him admit, if necessary, that he made threats to Moxley. Then he would have Pender testify that he went to Moxley's apartment sometime after two o'clock in the morning, that Moxley had told him he was going to meet Rhoda Montaine at two o'clock and that she would have money for him. Pender went to collect the money. That's only natural. And Pender would testify that he stood in front of the street door which opened on Moxley's stairway and rang the bell repeatedly and didn't get any answer.
"That would tie in with the testimony of the witnesses who lived in the other apartment house, and by the time Rhoda Montaine got on the witness stand and tried to swear that she was the one who was ringing the bell while the murder was being committed, the jury would put her down for a liar. Then the district attorney would start dangling that garage key in front of the jury, and Rhoda Montaine would draw a verdict of firstdegree murder."
Drake nodded thoughtfully. "But," he said, "what's the idea of keeping those people on the run?"
"Sooner or later," Mason said, "the district attorney is going to realize the really vital point in this case. Some one was standing in front of the street door of Moxley's apartment ringing the bell, at the very moment the murder was committed. The testimony of the prosecution's main witnesses will establish that. Now, whoever that person was, he or she must be innocent of the murder, because, obviously, a person can't ring a doorbell on a street door and, at the same time, club a man over the head in an apartment on an upper floor and in the back of the house. On the other hand, the person who was ringing that doorbell isn't going to be anxious to come forward and admit being in the vicinity of the murder at the time it was committed, but when he is once run to earth by the district attorney, he's going to tell his story eagerly enough. Therefore, we have two people who are going to fight over that doorbell. One of them will be the person who actually was standing in front of the door, ringing the doorbell, and the other person will be the one who was murdering Moxley at the time the doorbell was ringing. Both of these people will insist that they were the ones who rang the doorbell.
"Rhoda Montaine has been the first one to advance her claim. It is weakened very materially by the presence of her garage keys in Moxley's apartment, but the jury may believe her, just the same. If, however, the district attorney can find some one who will go on the stand and swear positively that he was the one who was ringing the doorbell, it is going to weaken Rhoda Montaine's case."
Drake nodded. "If," Mason went on, "the district attorney gets hold of Pender, and Pender tells him his story, the district attorney will make him a star witness for the prosecution. I'll have to crossexamine him and try to prove to the jury that he is the murderer instead of the one who was really ringing the doorbell. Obviously, if I'm forced to crossexamine this man along the usual lines of simply trying to prove he's lying, I'm not going to get very far. The district attorney will have coached him and coached him carefully. But, if I can crossexamine him by proving to the jury that he fled over the country, using different aliases, leaving places in the dead of night, slinking about the country from city to city as a common criminal, I can brand his testimon
y as a lie. Now, that's what I'm doing with Oscar Pender, and, incidentally, with his sister. I'm giving them an opportunity to impeach themselves before a jury. The more places that they go to and leave hurriedly, the more different names they take, the more attempts they make to disguise themselves and to conceal themselves, the more the jury is going to believe that they are the guilty ones. That's more particularly true because Pender will probably forget some of the places he went to and some of the names he used. If I can produce hotel registers to impeach his testimony, I can rip him wide open."
"Then," Drake said, "you intend to let the district attorney discover Oscar Pender eventually."
"At the proper moment," Perry Mason said, "I may let the district attorney get hold of Oscar Pender, but I want to have it in my power to produce him, or not to produce him, just as I see fit."
Drake nodded his head, said slowly, "You say there will be two people who will claim to have been on the scene of the murder, ringing that doorbell. One of them will be the murderer. The other one will be the one who was actually ringing the doorbell. We now have found these two people. One of them is Oscar Pender; the other one is Rhoda Montaine. Therefore, one of these people must be guilty of the murder."
A slow smile twisted Perry Mason's countenance. "Excellent reasoning, Paul," he said, "only it happens that there are three people who claim to have rung that doorbell."
"Three?" the detective asked in surprise. "Who's the other one?"
"I can't tell you, Paul, I can only tell you that he's a person the district attorney knows about. So far, the district attorney hasn't been able to get any admissions from him because this man is trying to protect Rhoda. Sooner or later they'll drag his story from him. That's going to put Rhoda in an awful spot.
"The district attorney will bear down heavy on this doorbell business, and then is when I will produce Oscar Pender. Then is when I will show his guilty conduct. Then is when I will show his motive. Then is when I will mix the whole case up so badly the district attorney won't know what it's all about, and the jury will get so hopelessly confused they'll let the two men fight it out and acquit the woman."