“He’s telephoning now... What happened, Chief? You seem all perked up. Have you found out something?”
Mason opened the morning newspaper, pointed to the half page photograph in the pictorial section. “Seen that?” he asked. “It’s a new one.”
“Yes.”
“Nice stuff,” Mason said. “I’ve been asleep at the switch. Listen to this. Here’s the caption. ‘PHOTOGRAPH OF PICNIC TAKEN WITH KODAK SELF-TIMER WHICH WILL FIGURE IN QUARTER MILLION DOLLAR SLANDER SUIT — THIS SHOWS ELLEN CUSHING, NOW MRS. ARTHUR LACEY, AND HER HUSBAND ON THE FAMOUS PICNIC WHICH IS INVOLVED IN A TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLAR SUIT FOR DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER, MR. PERRY MASON, THE NOTED ATTORNEY, AND PAUL DRAKE, THE DETECTIVE, BEING DEFENDANTS.’ ”
“What about it?” Della Street asked.
“Nice picture,” Mason said. “Nice composition. The man standing on the raft. The girl opening various boxes, spreading out plates on the ground, and above all a piece of ice reposing on the blanket.”
“What about it, Chief?”
“Beautiful cloud effect,” Mason said. “Just notice those beautiful billowy clouds. Lights and shadows. A darn fine picture. It might have been used for an advertisement for a film company. Clear, full of tone value.”
“Chief, what are you getting at?”
Mason grinned and said, “Every cloud, Della, has a silver lining.”
“I don’t get you...”
The door opened. Gertie leaned forward with the door, holding the knob of the open door with one hand, the jam with the other. She said, “Mrs. Lacey’s here. Attica wanted me to tell you. He says if you want to see him first...”
Mason folded the newspaper, opened his knife, slit out the printed copy of the photograph, folded it and put it in his pocket.
“Tell Attica I definitely don’t care to see him. Come on, Della, let’s go.”
Mason entered the law library. Ellen Cushing Lacey, wearing dark glasses, a dark hat, a trim dark blue suit, blue gloves and blue shoes, regarded the lawyer coldly. The white rims of the dark glasses gave her face a weird, owl-like look.
Attica said, “All right, all right. Let’s get going. This is the time heretofore fixed by stipulation for the deposition of Ellen Cushing Lacey in the case of Cushing vs. Perry Mason and Paul Drake.”
Mason said, “That’s right. This deposition is being taken pursuant to the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure by which I have the right to take the deposition of an adverse party and to cross-examine a party of record on the other side without being bound by the answers.”
“Very well,” Attica snapped. “Go ahead with your questions.”
Mason drew up a chair and sat down, said, “Let the witness be sworn.”
The notary public swore the witness, then quietly left the office. “I’ll return whenever the deposition is concluded,” she said.
Mason glanced over at Paul Drake, at the faces of the two newspapermen who were making themselves as inconspicuous as possible.
Mason said, “Miss Cushing, you’re suing Mr. Drake and myself for damages because of defamation of character.”
“That’s right.”
“Growing out of the fact that you claim we told the officers something about the wet blanket and the pair of wet shoes?”
“That and the fact that you told them I was harboring Scott Shelby, that he wasn’t dead at all, and that I had participated in a frame-up in order to make it look as though he had died, that I had had a man in my bedroom all night.”
“Now you explained that wet blanket by saying that you used it to carry ice in.”
“Yes. Do I have to go through that all over again?”
“Not necessarily, if you’ll refer to the testimony which you gave in court yesterday and say that it is substantially correct.”
“It is.”
“I hand you herewith a newspaper clipping setting forth that story. I’ll ask you to glance through it and see if it conforms to the facts of the case.”
“I’ve already seen it. It does.”
Mason said, “Just to save time I’d like to have this introduced in evidence.”
“Very well,” Attica said.
“It might be attached to the deposition,” Mason said, and handed it to the court reporter, who was taking down the answers in shorthand. “Now then, Mrs. Lacey, you told me, I believe, about the fact that the man who is at present your husband proposed to you on this day that Scott Shelby was murdered?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Proposed to you at about what time?”
“Around eleven-thirty in the morning.”
“And what did you do?”
“I’ve already gone into that with you.”
“Would you mind going into it again?”
“We decided to go on a picnic. We went out in the country where there was a lake. In case you have to know the exact location, it was a place that I had listed for sale, an estate of some four hundred acres, with a beautiful lake and some timber on it, an ideal place for a picnic. I had fallen in love with it the minute I had seen it. I didn’t have money enough to buy it myself, but I was rather romantic about it. I had sat down on the shores of that lake and visualized that Arthur might propose to me there. And so I wanted my dream to come true.”
“So you went down and picked up a lunch at the delicatessen store?”
“I put up some myself. Arthur went to the delicatessen store.”
“Now this was on the day that Scott Shelby was murdered, Thursday the twelfth, I believe.”
“That’s right.”
“And you didn’t see Mr. Shelby from the time you left on that picnic?”
“No, sir. From eleven o’clock in the morning I didn’t see him. I never saw him again alive. The next time I saw him, he was dead in the morgue and they called on me to identify the body.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “You put up some sandwiches for the picnic?”
“I did.”
“And Mr. Lacey went down to the delicatessen store to pick up some food?”
“He did.”
“And you had some beer, and I believe halfway out it occurred to you that you didn’t have any ice for the beer; so you got some ice and put it in a blanket so you could have the beer cold?”
“That’s right. My heavens, do I have to keep going over and over all this?”
“And in the press today there is a picture showing you on that picnic. Who furnished them with that picture?”
“I did.”
“It was one you took?”
“Yes. I had a shutter attachment that gave me time to get in the picture.”
“That was taken on Thursday, the twelfth?”
“That’s right. Thursday, the twelfth. That was the day Mr. Shelby was murdered by... Well, by someone.”
“At what time was that picture taken?”
“Along in the afternoon, three or four o’clock, I guess.”
“After you’d eaten lunch or before?”
“After we’d eaten lunch, of course.”
“And what time did you get out there?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think we arrived about half past one or two o’clock.”
“And had lunch when?”
“Almost immediately after we arrived.”
“And the way the blanket in the garage got wet was because this ice was carried in it?”
“Yes. Again and again and again. YES!!!”
“And Mr. Lacey’s shoes got wet because he was playing around on that raft?”
“Yes!”
“And what time did you come home from the picnic?”
“We stayed out there until after five o’clock. I had to hurry to meet my mother.”
“And as I understand it, Mr. Lacey went to the train with you to meet your mother?”
“He did and the train was late, so he couldn’t wait.”