“Frankly, Virgie, I don’t know just what would have happened if the Prosecution had sensed the truth and made a fair investigation. They’d have arrested you, charged you with murder, and you’d have had to plead self-defense. Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t have sounded so good. When a man is killed in his own house, it’s rather difficult to establish self-defense.”
She sobbed and said, “I know it.”
“But,” Mason went on, “Sergeant Holcomb thought he must have made a mistake and handed the ballistics expert the wrong bullet. In many ways, you can’t blame him. It was a perfectly natural conclusion for him to reach, and a police officer could hardly be expected to be so conscientious that he’d allow a murderer to escape, simply because he’d inadvertently confused bullets which had been handed him by an autopsy surgeon.”
“But Sergeant Holcomb’s testimony on the witness stand was so belligerent, and so positive, that I saw my big opportunity to fix it so you could never be prosecuted.”
“Why can’t I be prosecuted?” she asked.
“Because,” he said, “the State can never prosecute you for the murder of Austin Cullens, unless they show that Cullens was killed with the gun which you must have placed in the desk drawer in your uncle’s office. The only way they can do that is to trace the bullets from the body of Cullens. And the only way they can do that is to put Sergeant Holcomb on the stand, and Sergeant Holcomb has testified so positively and so belligerently, that he can never back up on that testimony now — not without submitting himself to a prosecution for perjury, as well as a storm of public ridicule. They’ll never do that.”
“Then they won’t do anything with me?” she asked.
“Not if you keep your mouth shut,” he told her. “I don’t want you to ever tell anyone anything about what happened.”
“I didn’t want Auntie to stand up there and take it,” she said. “I wanted to come in and confess. I...”
“I knew you would,” Mason said, patting her shoulder, “but I thought your aunt was quite capable of carrying on. Now, buck up, Virgie, I want you to be as good a campaigner as she was. I’ve had you held virtually a prisoner out here. That’s all over with. You can go back now, telephone or...”
“How... how did she take it?” Virginia Trent asked.
Mason grinned. “Right in her stride. She shot her wheel chair out in front of the jury right after the verdict, thanked them, and then, as cool as a cucumber, reached up on the clerk’s desk, took the knitting out of her bag, and started right on knitting your sweater.”
Virginia Trent grinned wistfully. “She would,” she said. “And, if the verdict had been the other way, she’d have done the same thing.”
“Yes,” Mason observed, thoughtfully, “I believe she would.”
“Now then,” Mason announced, turning to Della Street, “I’m starved. I dashed out here just as soon as I could get away from the courtroom and ditch the people who were hanging around trying to interview me, shake my hand, and take photographs for the newspapers. The questions is, when do we eat, where do we eat, and what do we eat?”
Della Street said, “We eat in the little restaurant across the street, because the hotel dining room is closed. The probabilities are we’ll eat hamburger sandwiches, and we’re going to have them just as soon as Virginia Trent can take a shower, splash some cold water on her eyes, and realize that there’s nothing to cry about any longer.”
Virginia Trent said, “That would take me too long, I’m afraid... Anyway, I’m not hungry... You folks go ahead and eat... I–I want to telephone someone.”
Della Street said, “I’ve been wrestling with this disciple of black despair all afternoon, Chief. Give me fifteen minutes to freshen up. Can you do that?”
“Fine,” he told her, “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
Chapter 20
Mason slipped his arm around Della Street’s waist as they walked down the driveway toward the main highway, where the headlights of automobiles streamed past. Just beyond the highway a bright red electric sign bore the legend, “HOT DOGS.”
“Have a hard day?” Mason asked.
“Pretty much. She went all to pieces when she broke.”
“I was afraid she was going to.”
“Did you know you were going to get Sarah Breel acquitted?”
“I felt pretty certain of it. I knew it was a cinch unless Sergeant Holcomb broke down and told the truth on cross-examination.”
“And you didn’t think he’d do that?”
“No. When you come right down to it, you can’t blame him. Almost anyone would have done the same thing under similar circumstances. Particularly, anyone who regarded attorneys for the defense as natural enemies.”
“Will they try to arrest Virginia Trent now, Chief?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I injected Pete Chennery into the case so that the police will grab him as an alibi. They’ll claim Chennery was the one who did the shooting, that he must have deliberately entered George Trent’s office, secured possession of the gun, killed Cullens, stolen a bunch of gems, returned the gun, and skipped out.”
“Then what’ll happen when they catch Chennery?” she asked.
“They won’t catch him,” Mason said, with a grin. “Chennery reads the newspapers, and he knows, the ropes. You see, Della, it’s one of those cases where a lawyer has to remember that the ultimate goal of every good attorney is to see that justice is done. There are times when methods must be subordinated to results.”
“You mean when you have to fight the devil with fire?”
“Not exactly. Of course Sergeant Holcomb was distorting the facts — not to deliberately distort them, but under the mistaken impression that he was keeping them straight. I had to take that into consideration.”
They walked in silence for a bit, then Mason asked, “How about Virgie? Is she going to snap out of it?”
“I think so: she put in a long distance call for her boyfriend.”
“One of those disinterested, academic conversations,” he asked, “about the ballistics of pistol bullets, and...”
She interrupted him with a laugh, and said, “You’d be surprised about Virginia.”
“You mean she was mushy over the telephone?” Mason asked incredulously.
“Well, she was pretty sugar-coated, and just before she hung up, she...”
“She what?” Mason asked.
Della Street laughed. “I couldn’t tell you,” she said, “it would be betraying a sacred confidence.”
“Could you,” Mason inquired, “show me?”
She paused long enough to make certain there was no one else on the driveway. “Well,” she conceded, with a throaty laugh, “I might bend over so I can reach...”