Mason walked away from her and over to where Paul Drake and Della Street were standing.
“Not so good, Perry,” Paul Drake said. “That last was a real bombshell.”
Mason said, “She says she was getting the papers for Mr. Theilman.”
“And very conveniently Mr. Theilman isn’t in a position to contradict her,” Paul Drake said dryly. “I think your client is a liar.”
Mason said, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from practicing law, Paul, it’s that an attorney must be reasonably skeptical of the things his client tells him until he gets into court, and then he must accept every word his client says at face value. He must stand up in front of the jury and show that he believes what his client is saying.”
“I know,” Drake said sympathetically, “but that was quite a bombshell, Perry. That—”
“Well, let’s analyze it,” Perry said. “What does it mean?”
“It means,” Drake said, “that your client went downstairs, got some newspapers, came back and pasted a blackmail message on a sheet of paper. Then she decided she’d make a good job of it so she went down and got another set of newspapers and pasted a blackmail message which was sent to Theilman at his residence.”
“All right, why would she do that?” Mason asked.
“She wanted to be sure he got it.”
“Theilman was in his office. All she had to do was to put that message in with the mail and he was sure to get it, and what’s more she’d know that he had it.”
“Well, perhaps she wanted his wife to know about it,” Drake said.
“On the other hand,” Mason said, “suppose Theilman planned on disappearing and wanted to get as much ready cash as he could. He wanted to leave a blackmail message behind and wanted to be sure that people knew about it. He hoped that Janice Wainwright would look in the wastebasket and find the message there but he didn’t know whether she would be too ethical to dig out the pieces and read it, so he put another message in the inside pocket of his suit and then went home and changed his suit, knowing his wife’s habit of looking through the pockets.”
Drake said, “You’re client is a pretty good-looking babe, Perry. If she backs up that story with enough nylon, and you can make it sound convincing to the jury, you may get a hung jury out of it.”
Mason suddenly stiffened to attention.
Della Street, knowing his every mood, watching him, said, “What is it, Perry?”
Perry snapped his fingers. “Simple,” he said, “and I almost overlooked it.”
“What?”
“If the message was cut from those papers,” Mason said, “then it was either prepared by Theilman or by Janice Wainwright. In either event the message couldn’t have come through the mail, and if that is the case the letter from A. B. Vidal — that is, the addressed envelope — has to be a dummy.”
“But,” Della Street said, “Janice said that that envelope was in the mail... It had to be in that envelope.”
“But it couldn’t have been,” Mason said.
“I’m afraid,” Drake told him, “that that’s one of the things the prosecution is going to pick on. You can see what they’re doing, Perry. Hamilton Burger is here to have the honor of cross-examining your client, of ripping her story to pieces. Once she gets on that witness stand, Hamilton Burger is going to be the hero of the piece and he wouldn’t be in here in that capacity unless he had some card up his sleeve.”
Mason walked across the courtroom, stood looking out of the window regarding the traffic on the street far below with unseeing eyes.
The courtroom again filled with spectators. The bailiff entered. A buzzer summoned the jurors.
Throughout the courtroom was the air of tense expectation which comes before a crucial battle.
“Everybody stand up,” the bailiff said.
Judge Seymour came in from his chambers, walked over to the bench and seated himself. The bailiff’ tapped the gavel. Everyone sat down.
“The jurors are all present, the defendant is in court,” Judge Seymour said. “You may proceed with your case, Mr. Mason.”
“If the Court please,” Mason said, “a matter of some considerable importance has occurred to me during the recess. I would like to recall one of the prosecution’s witnesses for further cross-examination.”
“What witness?” Judge Seymour asked.
“Mrs. Carlotta Theilman.”
Judge Seymour glanced down at the prosecution table.
Hamilton Burger arose. “If the Court please,” he said with quiet dignity, “I believe this is the first time Your Honor has presided in a case where Mr. Mason was representing a defendant. I have been in dozens of those cases. This is all a part of a virtually stereotyped procedure. Counsel always waits until it suits his convenience and then asks to recall a witness for cross-examination, thereby giving undue emphasis to the questions that he asks and thereby frequently securing a much-needed delay.
“In the present case it is quite obvious that defense counsel wants the benefit of a delay in determining whether to put the defendant on the stand or not. I can sympathize with him in his problem, but we have our work to do, the Court has its work to do and the taxpayers are entitled to some consideration. I submit that the purpose of this request for cross-examination is simply to obtain further delay and attempt to stall the case until the hour of the noon adjournment so that counsel can delay his decision whether he wants to put the defendant on the stand or not.”
Judge Seymour said, “I feel that it is incumbent upon defense counsel to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses at one time and not piece-meal. Of course, the Court has it in its discretion to permit a witness to be recalled for further cross-examination even after the prosecution has rested, but the procedure would be irregular and I would be inclined to allow it only in most exceptional circumstances. And since those circumstances do not appear at the present time, I see no reason for granting the motion.”
“May I be heard, Your Honor?” Mason asked.
“Yes, certainly, Mr. Mason. I never wish to preclude argument on the part of counsel.”
“If the Court please,” Mason said, his voice vibrant with sincerity, “this is a case which depends upon circumstantial evidence. One of the items of circumstantial evidence which the prosecution will rely upon in presenting the case to the jury is the identity of this twenty-dollar bill, number... let me see that exhibit, please, Mr. Clerk.”
“There’s no need to delay matters while counsel takes up more time reading the number of that bill into the record,” Hamilton Burger said. “There’s only one twenty-dollar bill introduced in evidence and we don’t need all this red tape and rigmarole which will simply result in further delay.”
“The Court is inclined to agree with the prosecution,” judge Seymour said. “What about the twenty-dollar bill, Mr. Mason?”
“I want to examine Mrs. Carlotta Theilman and ask her if, after my secretary and I were driven to the airport by the police, after she got the taxi driver to take her to the casino, she didn’t pay off the taxi driver with a twenty-dollar bill.”
“What if she did?” Hamilton Burger said. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means a great deal,” Mason said. “It means that this twenty-dollar bill is now established to have been one of the twenty-dollar bills that was in the suitcase at the time it was placed in the locker FO82 at the Union Depot.
“If the defendant had that twenty-dollar bill in her possession, the prosecution is going to claim that it means she was doing the blackmailing, that she was the one who fabricated the letters, that she was the one who secured delivery of that suitcase; that when Mr. Theilman found out about what had happened, she had no alternative except to murder him.