“It does,” Mason said, “but I don’t think it is a cartridge. Remember, Paul, this picture was taken by a flashlight which makes the lighting rather harsh, and we’ve enlarged it from rather a small negative. Even so, that could hardly be a revolver cartridge. It would have to be a rifle cartridge, judging from its length.”
“Well, why not?” Drake asked.
“The modern rifle,” Mason said, “uses a bottleneck cartridge. This is straight across like a revolver shell.”
“Couldn’t a revolver cartridge be that long?” Drake asked.
“Yes,” Mason said, “I guess it could, but — that’s rather a big coin, Paul. I wish we could make out some of the details on it.”
“You can only get a line here and there,” Drake said, “not enough to tell what kind of a coin it is.”
Mason narrowed his eyes. “That coin,” he said, “must mean something. One thing’s certain, Paul. Wentworth wasn’t killed at the time it’s been generally assumed the shot was fired. He had an opportunity to dress, empty the ashtray, cast loose the lines, start the motor, and put out to sea.”
Drake shook his head. “Someone else did that for him, Perry. You can’t figure a man being killed on the high seas on a yacht without anyone else being around — not without some evidences of a struggle. A man certainly isn’t going to let someone else board his yacht, and...”
“Not strangers,” Mason said. “A friend might be different.”
“Well,” Drake said, “even supposing you’re right, I don’t see what this coin has to do with it particularly.”
Mason said, “I’d like to have the Pennwent searched from stem to stern to see if we can find that coin.”
“It’s been gone over with a fine tooth comb for fingerprints and everything else,” Drake said. “The Homicide Bureau of the Police Department has inventories of everything that was found. I can find out if that coin was located.”
“It should be a cinch,” Mason said, “because it’s evidently in a case with a hinged cover. That would mean it’s a valuable coin. You can get just a hint of the design, Paul. There’s something running across it, a band of crisscross lines.”
“Uh huh,” Drake said, “probably some sort of a coat of arms.”
“It might give us a clue,” Mason said thoughtfully, “if we could—”
There was a knock at the door of the office. Drake called, “Come in.”
One of his operatives opened the door. “Want to see the papers?” he asked. “There’s a lot in there about... about Mr. Mason.”
Mason straightened from a contemplation of the photograph. “It’ll be a change for my eyes,” he said. “What do they say about me?”
“Darn near everything,” the operative said with a grin. “It seems you’re guilty of just about everything except murder, including bribing a witness to leave the country.”
“Bribing a witness?” Mason asked.
“Yes, a girl named Hazel Tooms. It’s the theory of the police that someone who wanted her out of the way gave her five hundred dollars to make a trip out of the country. She admitted that much to officers when they served her with a subpoena.”
“Mention my name?” Mason asked.
“Not in so many words,” the operative said.
Mason spread the paper out on the desk and read in headlines:
“OFFICERS CLAIM LAWYER CAUGHT RED-HANDED. POLICE CLAIM PROMINENT ATTORNEY APPREHENDED PLANTING GUN.”
Mason turned to Paul Drake with a grin. “Well, Paul,” he said, “looks like we’re in the news.”
Drake placed his extended forefinger on a paragraph midway down the article. “Notice this,” he said. “ ‘Grand jury subpoenas have been issued and will be served sometime today. Police have insisted that the grand jury make a sweeping investigation into the activities of a lawyer whose methods have been noted for dramatic originality rather than a strict adherence to conventional routine. It is rumored that a detective agency which subsists largely on work furnished by the attorney in question will be the subject of a sweeping investigation. If criminal charges are not brought, police intimate that they will at least take steps to prevent a renewal of the agency’s licence.’”
Mason grinned again at Paul Drake. “How about a little breakfast, Paul?”
Drake said, “Five minutes ago, it would have sounded swell. Right now, I’d have to choke the food down. Gosh, Perry, I hope you know the answer to this one.”
Mason said, “I think we have enough facts to go on, Paul. What we need right now is a chance to do a little thinking. I’m going to a Turkish bath, get a shave, some breakfast, and I’ll meet you at the preliminary hearing.”
“What’ll happen there?” Drake asked.
Mason said, “One thing about the justice of the peace, Paul. Emil Scanlon is fair. He doesn’t like to have cases tried in the newspapers. In view of these accusations, he’ll give me every chance to examine witnesses.”
“What’ll he do with the district attorney?” Drake asked.
“Give him the same chance,” Mason said.
Drake ran his fingers through his hair. “And I,” he announced mournfully, “am a witness. I’ll have you both on my neck.”
Emil Scanlon was a unique justice of the peace with an appreciation of the dramatic, a keen sense of humor, and a desire to see justice done at all costs. His basic philosophy of life made him as bigheartedly sympathetic with the living as he was scientifically detached with the dead. Taking his role of office conscientiously, he felt himself the representative of both the living and the dead.
Scanlon’s first career was that of a professional baseball player of no mean ability who retired to Southern California after an injury shortened his playing days in the early twenties. Elected justice of the peace the first time he ran, he was “grandfathered” into office when California substituted municipal judges for justices of the peace in the larger cities; and even though he had no former legal background or even a high school education, the new law permitted him to be re-elected to the office of justice of the peace year after year to the consternation of a succession of district attorneys and impatient young law school graduates whetting their teeth as defence attorneys.
Scanlon watched Mae Farr as she sat in whispered consultation with Perry Mason and decided that she was far from the cold blooded killer the district attorney’s office claimed. His knowledge of Perry Mason was founded upon various personal contacts, dramatic preliminary hearings when Mason, using a quick wit, keen logic, and unconventional methods, had sprinted first across the tape as a spectacular winner from a position hopelessly behind the field.
There was nothing in Emil Scanlon’s voice or face to reflect the determination which crystallized in his mind that, even if the hearing took all night, he was going to see that the various parties had a square shake.
Mae Farr whispered her confession to Perry Mason. “I gave you a raw deal,” she said. “I lied to you when I first came to your office and I’ve been lying to you ever since. When you didn’t find Hal’s gun there where he’d thrown it over the fence, I became convinced that he’d doubled back, picked up the gun, and gone down to take the Pennwent out to sea and sink it, taking the chance of rowing back in the little skiff Wentworth kept aboard.
“I doubled back and took Marley’s cruiser and went out to pick him up.”
“Find him?” Mason asked.
“No,” she said, “I didn’t search very long because I became convinced the Coast Guard had been notified of the killing and was looking for me.”
“What made you think that?”
“A Coast Guard airplane flew over me, circled three or four times, and then went on out to sea.”