Dr. Willmont bowed and smiled.
Mrs. Lawley handed Mason a sealed envelope. “You wanted this,” she said.
Mason nodded, turned toward the door. “I’ll be waiting in the lobby, Doctor.”
It was twenty-five minutes later that Dr. Willmont walked over to sit down beside Mason. He took a cigar from his pocket, clipped off the end, and lit it.
“I’ll try to give you the picture as clearly as I can without using technical terms. The average man thinks of heart disease as something very serious which will prove speedily fatal. As a matter of fact, the heart is an organ. It’s composed of muscles, nerves, valves, arteries, and a heart lining. Any one of these parts is subject to derangement, and when that happens, we have a condition known as heart disease, or a weak heart.
“Now, without going into details, I can tell you this: That woman’s heart shows every evidence of having been badly impaired. I would say that she had an endocarditis, that she had made a partial recovery, that she had been subjected to a nervous shock which had thrown an unusual strain on her heart, that she has, therefore, suffered a temporary set back, that with proper care and treatment she will gain back the ground she has lost. I would say she was on the mend.”
“How about subjecting her to the strain of appearing before the district attorney, or perhaps...”
Dr. Willmont shook his head. “You keep that woman right there in that hotel bedroom,” he said. “Keep her quiet. Have her meals brought in. Keep her cheerful. Keep her from worrying. Give her the proper medicine, and, inside of a few days, she’ll be back out. As a matter of fact, Perry, I didn’t inquire as to what had happened. I can tell she’s had some shock, but, in the end, the result may be beneficial.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“There’s a mental condition involved. There nearly always is in cardiac cases. This woman was trying to keep a stiff upper lip, but she’d been warned so much about excitement and shock and impressed with the necessity for keeping quiet that she’d resigned herself to invalidism. She was trying to be brave, but subconsciously she felt she’d never be any better. The fact that she was able to stand what she’s recently been through has proven a surprise. It will be beneficial — if she gets proper care now.”
Mason said, “That’s all I wanted to know. She stays here.”
“Who is she?” Dr. Willmont asked.
Mason said, “Make no mistake about that, Doctor. She’s Mrs. Charles X. Dunkurk of San Diego.”
Dr. Willmont nodded.
“What have you learned about Esther Dilmeyer?” Mason asked.
“It was veronal all right,” Dr. Willmont said. “Five grains to a candy center.”
“Fingerprints?”
“None.”
“Any other clues?”
“None that I know of.”
“When will she wake up?”
“Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow morning, perhaps not until tomorrow night. I’m not going to hurry it any. She’s coming out of it nicely. She’s having now what you might call a normal sleep.”
Mason said, “I guess that’s about as good a job as you can do for her. I’d like to talk with her, but I’d probably be trampled to death in the rush. I suppose the police and the D.A.’s office are camping on the doorstep.”
“Worse than that,” Dr. Willmont said. “They think the patient should be restored to consciousness, that heroic means should be used, and...”
“And you do not, I take it?” Mason interrupted.
“I,” Dr. Willmont said, regarding him with twinkling eyes, “definitely do not.”
Mason said, “I’ll walk down the street a way with you.”
“I have my car here. I’ll give you a lift.”
“No, I’m going only a short distance.”
“I have a couple of prescriptions for her.”
“Give them to me. I’ll pay for them and have them sent up.”
Mason took the prescriptions, strolled out of the lobby, watched Dr. Willmont into his automobile, and then went to the garage where he surrendered the claim check, got Mrs. Lawley’s coupe and drove it down to the business district. He found a parking place, carefully polished the steering wheel, the handles on the door, the gear shift lever, and the back of the rear view mirror with his handkerchief. He locked up the car and walked away. After two blocks, he dropped the ignition key through a steel grating in the sidewalk.
Chapter 9
It was after ten when Perry Mason opened the door of his private office. He hung up his hat and coat, said, “Hello,” to Della Street, and she brought in the mail.
“Sit down a while, Della. Let the mail go. I’m in a jam.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know how bad it’s going to be. You’ve seen the papers?”
“Yes. Is it about Lynk’s murder?”
“It’s connected with that.”
“Mildreth Faulkner?”
“No, her sister, Carlotta Lawley.”
“The paper doesn’t say anything about her.”
“The police aren’t ready to do anything about her yet. For one thing, they think they have a better case against Mildreth Faulkner, and, for another thing, there’s a lot they don’t know about Carlotta yet.”
“Will they find out?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Probably today.”
“I thought you were representing Miss Faulkner.”
“No. I don’t want her case, and I don’t think she wants me.”
“Why doesn’t she want you?”
“Because she wants me to represent her sister, and she’s smart enough to know that if I’m representing her sister, I can’t have any strings tied to it.”
“Does the sister know that?”
“No.”
“Why are you in a jam over it?”
Mason offered her his cigarettes. She shook her head. He took one, scraped a match on the sole of his shoe, lit up, and sat for a moment gazing at the flame of the match before he extinguished it. Then he said, “She could be guilty.”
“Who?”
“Either one of them, Carlotta or Mildreth.”
“You mean of the murder?”
“Yes.”
“Well?” she asked.
He said. “I’ve always tried to represent clients who were innocent. I’ve been lucky. I’ve taken chances. I’ve played hunches, and the hunches have panned out. Circumstantial evidence can be black against a client, and I’ll see something in his demeanor, some little mannerism, the way he answers a question or something, which makes me believe he’s innocent. I’ll take the case, and it will work out. I’m not infallible. My percentages should run about fifty-fifty. So far I’ve always been on the black side of the ledger. That’s luck. Now I have a feeling things may turn, and the debits may catch up with me.”
“How much difference would it make?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Mason said frankly. “I do know that a lawyer can’t simply sit back and refuse to take any case unless he thinks his client is innocent. A client is entitled to legal representation. It takes the unanimous verdict of twelve jurors to find a person guilty. It isn’t fair for a lawyer to turn himself into a jury, weigh the evidence, and say, ‘No, I won’t handle your case because I think you’re guilty.’ That would deprive an accused person of a fair trial.”
She watched him with solicitous eyes. “Are you whistling in the dark to keep your courage up?”
He grinned at her. “Yes.”
“I thought so.”
Mason said, “The hell of it is she’s got a weak heart. She’s been through a lot, and the pump has gone bad. It will take a long spell of rest, medicine, and recuperation before it gets back into any sort of shape.