“Yes, sir.”
“Didn’t you go to the Pacific Greyhound Stage Depot at approximately three o’clock in the morning on the fourteenth and place a long distance call for Mrs. Doris Sully Kent in Santa Barbara?”
Maddox clamped his lips tightly together and shook his head. “You’ll have to answer the question audibly,” the court reporter announced.
“I most certainly did not,” Maddox said, speaking distinctly.
“You didn’t?” Mason asked, surprise in his voice.
“No, sir.”
“Were you up at approximately three o’clock in the morning?”
“I wasn’t even awake.”
“Didn’t you,” Mason asked, “engage in a conference with Mr. Duncan, your attorney, some time around three o’clock in the morning of the fourteenth?”
“No, sir, absolutely not.”
“At any time between midnight of the thirteenth and five o’clock in the morning of the fourteenth?”
“Absolutely not.”
Mason said, “That’s all.”
Hamilton Burger called a draftsman who produced plans of the Kent residence. The plans were offered in evidence and received without objection. The coroner fixed the time of death as some time between twothirty and threethirty on the morning of the fourteenth. Detective Sergeant Holcomb took the witness stand and identified the carving knife, with its blade stained a sinister, rusty red, as the weapon which had been found under the pillow of Kent’s bed. Perry Mason, who had not crossexamined the other witnesses, asked Sergeant Holcomb, “What happened to the pillowcase and the sheets on that bed?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Well, I was told that they had been put in the laundry by the housekeeper.”
“She didn’t save them?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you produce them as evidence?”
“Because I didn’t think I needed to.”
“Isn’t it a fact that there were no blood stains whatever on the pillow or on the sheet?”
“I don’t think so. I think there were blood stains, but I can’t remember.”
Mason said sneeringly, “If there had been blood stains you’d have thought the articles of sufficient importance to impound them as evidence, wouldn’t you?”
“Objected to as argumentative,” Burger stormed.
“Merely for the purpose of refreshing the witness’s recollection,” Mason said. “He has testified that he doesn’t know whether there were any blood stains.”
“Let him answer the question,” Judge Markham ruled.
“I don’t know,” Sergeant Holcomb admitted, and then added, “You should know, Mr. Mason. You were the one who discovered the carving knife.”
Spectators in the courtroom tittered. Perry Mason said, “Yes, I know. Are you asking me to tell you, Sergeant?”
Judge Markham pounded his gavel. “That will do,” he ordered. “The witness will be interrogated by proper questions. There will be no more exchanges between the witness and counsel.”
“And,” Mason charged, raising his voice, “since the sheet and pillowcase were free of blood stains and might, therefore, be evidence which would militate against the theory of the Prosecution, you saw to it that these articles found their way into the laundry while you were in exclusive charge of the premises, and before the Defense had a chance to preserve them, didn’t you?”
With a roar, Burger was on his feet, objecting, “… argumentative, improper, no proper foundation laid, insulting, not proper crossexamination, incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.” Perry Mason merely smiled.
“The witness may answer,” Judge Markham ruled. “As asked, the question goes to the bias or interest of the witness.”
“No,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “I didn’t have anything to do with the sheets.”
“But you did suggest to the housekeeper she had better clean up the room?”
“Perhaps I did.”
“And make the bed?”
“Perhaps.”
“That,” Mason announced with a triumphant glance at the jury, “is all.”
“Call John J. Duncan,” Blaine announced as Hamilton Burger settled back in his chair, to let his deputy take the lead for a while. Duncan strutted pompously forward and was sworn. “Your name is John J. Duncan. You are an attorney from Illinois, and you know the defendant, Peter Kent?”
“Yes.”
“You were, I believe, in his house on the thirteenth and the morning of the fourteenth of this month?”
“That’s right. I engaged in a business conference with Mr. Kent and with Mr. Perry Mason, his attorney. There were also present at the conference Helen Warrington, Mr. Kent’s secretary, and my client, Frank B. Maddox. I believe there was also present a Dr. Kelton.”
“What time did you retire?”
“Around eleven o’clock. I had a talk with my client in his bedroom after the meeting with these other gentlemen split up.”
“Did you see Mr. Kent later on during the evening?”
“I saw him early on the morning of the fourteenth.”
“At what time?”
“At precisely three o’clock in the morning.”
“Where did you see him?”
“In the patio of the house.”
“Can you point out on the map, People’s Exhibit Number One, the exact spot where you first saw the defendant at that time?” Duncan indicated a point on the diagram.
“And where on the diagram is your bedroom located?” Duncan indicated. “And from your bedroom you could plainly see the defendant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did you first see him?”
“I was awakened by a shadow falling across my face. I woke up and saw someone moving across the porch. I jumped up, looked at the clock to see what time it was, and went to the window. I saw Peter Kent, the defendant, attired only in a nightgown, walking across the patio. He had a knife in his hand. He walked to a coffee table, paused for a few moments and then crossed the patio and vanished through the door on the other side.”
“By the door on the other side, you mean the spot which I am now indicating on the map, People’s Exhibit Number One, and marked for identification ‘Door on North Side of Patio’?”
“I do.”
“And approximately where was this coffee table located?” Duncan made a mark with a crayon on the map.
“Yes.”
“You say you looked at the clock?”
“I did.”
“And what time was it?”
“Three o’clock.”
“Did you turn on a light to see the clock?”
“I did not. The clock had a luminous dial and I was able to see the position of the hands.”
“Did you look at the clock before or after you observed the figure in the patio?”
“Both. I looked at it as soon as I sat up in bed, and I looked at it when I returned to bed after seeing the defendant cross the patio and vanish through that door.”
“What did you do, if anything?”
“I was very much concerned, put on a bathrobe, opened the door from my bedroom into the corridor, looked up and down the corridor, saw no one and then decided that, since I was in a hostile house, I’d mind my own business. I went back to bed and eventually went to sleep.”
“I think, if the court please,” Mason said, “we are entitled to have stricken from the answer of the witness the fact that he was in a hostile house. That is a conclusion of the witness and the answer, insofar as it relates to his motives, is not responsive to the question, and is, in addition, objectionable.”
“It may be stricken out,” Judge Markham ruled.
Blaine turned to Perry Mason and said, “You may crossexamine, Mr. Mason. Perhaps you’ll want to ask him why he went back to his sleep.”
Judge Markham frowned at Blaine and said, “That will do, Mr. Blaine.”
“Yes,” Mason said easily, “I will ask him just that. Mr. Duncan, how did it happen that you were able to go back to bed and go to sleep after seeing so startling a sight?”
Duncan leaned forward impressively. “Because I was tired,” he said. “I’d been listening to you talk all the evening.”
The courtroom burst into a roar of laughter. The bailiff pounded with his gavel. Judge Markham waited until order had been restored, then said to the witness, “Mr. Duncan, you’re an attorney. You need no instructions as to the duties of a witness. You will please refrain from attempting to provoke laughter or from adding to your answers comments which are uncalled for. You will also refrain from indulging in personalities with counsel.”