“Under those circumstances,” Hamilton Burger said, “we ask that the Court recess until tomorrow morning in order to give us an opportunity to prepare for argument and we can then put in a full day in argument to the jurors.”
Judge Seymour glanced at Perry Mason. “Does the defense have any objection?”
“The defense wants to proceed,” Mason said. “The district attorney is an officer of the people and paid by the taxpayers. He has expressed himself as being very much concerned at the cost to the taxpayers of undue delay in these matters so we’re quite willing to give the taxpayers a break by proceeding right now.”
“Very well,” Judge Seymour said, “the motion is denied. Proceed with your opening argument, Mr. District Attorney.”
“We waive our opening argument,” Hamilton Burger said.
“Very well, Mr. Mason, proceed for the defense,” Judge Seymour said.
Perry Mason arose, walked over to face the jury, smiled at them and said, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is going to be a very brief argument.
“The Court will instruct you that in a case depending upon circumstantial evidence if there is any reasonable hypothesis, other than that of guilt, upon which the circumstantial evidence can be explained, it is your duty to acquit the defendant.
“That is a part of the doctrine of reasonable doubt, which is a part of our law and a part of our basic system of the administration of justice.
“Now then, you people can very readily see what happened in this case. It depends entirely upon circumstantial evidence. You have the story of the defendant through the lips of the police witnesses who told you about her story of the suitcase and the letter which had been composed of headlines clipped from newspapers.
“It now becomes apparent that that letter was not sent through the mail but was prepared by Mr. Theilman himself. He sent his secretary out to get newspapers and scissors and prepared those letters.
“Why did he do it?
“He did it because he was engaged in a fight for control of one of his companies. His former wife, Carlotta Theilman, had the controlling interest in that stock. Theilman wanted it and other people wanted it.
“Carlotta Theilman was still in love with her husband. She felt that his affections had been stolen by an attractive young woman who had made it her business to be attractive and to cultivate her physical charms.
“So what did Carlotta Theilman do? She took herself in hand. She started dieting. She took off forty or fifty pounds. She regained much of her lost beauty. She wanted her husband to see her in her new personality. You can’t blame her for that. She wanted revenge on the woman who had stolen her husband. That’s human nature. You can only sympathize with her for that.
“In the meantime her husband wanted her stock. He felt that she wouldn’t sell it to him if he approached her directly and so he used a dummy. He instructed that dummy to give a fictitious name.
“What fictitious name would the dummy naturally give? He would give whatever name Mr. Theilman had told him he wanted on the stock ledger.
“And what name did Theilman want on the stock ledger?
“He wanted to put the stock in his wife’s name. His wife’s maiden name had been Agnes Bernice Vidal; so he had a dummy telephone his former wife. This dummy was instructed to give his name as A. B. Vidal and to offer Carlotta a cash deal for her stock.
“Why did Theilman want it to be a cash deal?
“Because he didn’t want the mysterious opponent to know what he was doing. He wanted to have this person left in the dark as to the identity of A. B. Vidal.
“When Theilman realized that he had withdrawn so much money that it might attract suspicion, he sent his secretary down to get some newspapers and from the newspapers he clipped out a threatening message — apparently a blackmail message. Then he was careful to tear that message and put it in the wastebasket where his secretary would be sure to see it and, later on, if there should be any question of the cash withdrawals, any person spying on Theilman’s operations would think the cash had been withdrawn to pay a blackmailer, A. B. Vidal. It would never occur to such a spy that A. B. Vidal was Mr. Theilman’s wife and therefore his alter ego.
“However, he was afraid that his secretary might be too ethical to prowl in the wastebaskets so he sent her back down for another set of papers, prepared another message, folded it and put it in his inside coat pocket.
“Then he sent his secretary down to put a suitcase full of money in a locker and to send the key to A. B. Vidal at General Delivery. However, Theilman had a duplicate key to that locker and as soon as his secretary had deposited the suitcase he opened the locker and took out the suitcase. He then had the money necessary to pay Carlotta Theilman in cash for the stock. He wanted to have his dummy, A. B. Vidal, do that, but Mrs. Carlotta Theilman had other ideas. She wanted to sell that stock to Morley Theilman personally so that Morley Theilman could see her new radiant beauty, her svelte figure. That was what any one of you women on the jury would have done. You would have planned an opportunity to revenge yourself on the vampire who had broken up your home.
“The twenty-dollar bill that the cabdriver had was one that he got from Mrs. Carlotta Theilman. She got it from the man who gave the name of A. B. Vidal, the man who was acting as a dummy for her ex-husband, Morley Theilman.
“Now then, we come to the question of the murder.
“If you will note all of the evidence concerning that murder, all of the evidence which implicates the defendant, you will find that it hinges entirely upon one thing: The defendant made a statement to the officers in which she said Morley Theilman had telephoned her, giving her instructions to go to Las Vegas; that the telephone call had been received a little before nine o’clock on the morning of the fourth.
“The theory of the prosecution is that Theilman was dead at that time.
“How do they fix the time of death?
“By rigor mortis which means nothing and post-mortem lividity which means even less.
“The only reason they fix the time of death at that time is because a thundershower was supposed to have moistened the soil, and the tracks of the defendant’s automobile were in that soil.
“Now then, there are photographs in evidence in this case — photographs of the place where the body was found. I ask you to look at those photographs. You will note that this was a real estate development which had gone into disrepair. Evidently there was a lawn in front of the building at one time, the little real estate office where the body was found.
“The theory of the prosecution was that the defendant and the decedent had an amorous interlude at that house; that she killed him and left after the thundershower. The only evidence that she was there is due to the fact that her automobile left tracks through that soft ground, going in one direction.
“The evidence shows that immediately after talking with Mr. Theilman on the fourth, the defendant went to a beauty shop and was there for some five hours. Her car had been parked near her apartment, which was also near the beauty parlor. It was only necessary for someone to take this car, drive it up to the real estate office where that person had arranged to meet Mr. Theilman, shoot him, and then return the defendant’s car to its parking place at the beauty parlor.
“All this murderer needed to do to frame a case against the defendant and to confuse the time of death was to see that the ground was softened in front of the real estate office.