“Now, wait a minute,” Sheriff Jewett said, “you’re accusing me of incompetence.”
“I’m not accusing you of incompetence,” Mason said “I have made the statement that your methods of investigation were slipshod.”
“Well, it amounts to the same thing.”
“All right,” Mason said, “if you want it that way, then I’m accusing you of incompetence.”
“I don’t know whether I care to co-operate with you in connection with a press conference or not,” the sheriff said.
“Hey, wait a minute,” one of the newspaper reporters said, “What are you trying to do, squelch the biggest story of the year? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m running my office,” the sheriff said.
One of the other newspaper reporters said, “Sure, you’re running your office, Sheriff, but don’t forget your friends. We took off our coats and went to work for you at election time and we intend to keep in your corner, but we sure as hell don’t want to lose out on a story of this magnitude.
“Do you realize what it means? Here’s a wealthy woman accused of murder, with overtones of blackmail in the case. The wire services will eat it up. The metropolitan papers will be screaming for news. It means a big personal income to every reporter here in the courtroom. You can’t throttle a story of that sort — moreover, you can’t keep the defendant from talking if she wants to talk. All you can do is throw a monkey wrench in the machinery so it will handicap the local reporters who have been in your corner all along, and who will be sidetracked by reporters from the big metropolitan dailies who will come thronging down here by airplane the minute word gets out that Perry Mason is going to let his client talk.”
The sheriff thought things over for a moment, then said, “All right. In ten minutes we’ll let her make her statement to the press in the law library.”
“And we’ll see to it that only accredited press representatives are there,” Mason said. “Otherwise, my client won’t talk.”
“The sheriff and his deputies will be there,” the sheriff said.
“Of course,” Mason smiled. “We want you there.”
“Very well, ten minutes from now in the law library,” the sheriff said.
Chapter Twenty
Perry Mason said, “Now, Mrs Bancroft, if you’ll just sit down here behind this table facing the representatives of the press, I’m going to ask you to tell your story.”
Bancroft tugged at Mason’s sleeve. “Mason,” he said in a whisper, “do you think this is wise? To me it seems suicidal.”
“I think it’s wise,” Mason said. “It may be suicidal, but it’s a calculated risk.”
The lawyer turned to Mrs Bancroft. “Now, go right ahead, Mrs Bancroft. I’m going to ask you a few preliminary questions first... You were being blackmailed by Gilly?”
“Yes. I had paid him the sum of one thousand dollars.”
“When?”
“About the eighth, I think it was.”
“I’m going to ask you to avoid telling what the blackmail was about, but I am going to ask you this. Was it because of anything you had done?”
“No.”
“It was because of some information which he threatened to release, which you felt would affect the happiness of other people?”
“That’s right.”
“Now then, after you had paid Gilly this money, when did you next see him?”
“Aboard my yacht, the Jinesa, on the tenth.”
“You had been aboard the yacht previously with someone else?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“With Irwin Victor Fordyce.”
“You had taken him down to the yacht?”
“Yes.”
“And he was the young man that Drew Kirby had seen with you that night?”
“Oh now, just a minute, just a minute,” Robley Hastings interposed. “I’m here representing the press but I don’t like to have you lead the witness into all these statements. You couldn’t do it in court and I don’t think you should do it here.
“I now see why you have staged this elaborate press interview. It’s so you can put words in the witness’ mouth.”
Mason said, “You’re here as a representative of the press, not as the district attorney. I’m conducting this interview in my own way. Now sit down and shut up.”
“As a representative of the press I don’t have to either sit down or shut up,” Hastings said.
“All right,” Mason said, “I’m running the show. I’m giving the conditions under which Mrs Bancroft will tell her story. How about it, gentlemen, do you want her to go ahead and tell it my way, or do you want to have the interview called off because the district attorney, who is here masquerading as a representative of the press, thinks that my questions are irregular?”
A chorus of voices said, “No! No! Handle it your way. We want the story. We’d like to question her afterwards.”
“You can question her all you want afterwards,” Mason said, “but she’s going to tell her story under conditions which are fair to her. And she isn’t going to be browbeaten by the district attorney, nor am I going to be browbeaten by him.”
“Let her go ahead,” one of the reporters said.
“I still protest,” Hastings said. “I—”
“Shut up, Hastings!” one of the newspaper reporters interrupted. “You keep on talking and you’re going to kill a hell of a good story. Now shut up!”
“How dare you talk to me that way?” Hastings asked.
“I dare to talk to you that way because I’m a working newspaperman. I’m a representative of an out-of-town newspaper but still in the county. My rag fought against you when you were running for office and we’re going to fight against you when you run for office again. In the meantime you’re not going to kill a good story with a lot of courtroom technicalities.”
Hastings started to say something, then subsided into silence.
“Now then, go on, tell us what happened,” Mason said to Mrs Bancroft. “What were you trying to do with Fordyce? Why did you take him down to the yacht club?”
“Because I wanted him to take our yacht and go to Catalina in it.”
“Why?”
“I wanted him where Gilly couldn’t find him.”
“And why did you want him where Gilly couldn’t find him?”
“Because I thought Gilly had... well, I thought Gilly wasn’t to be trusted. I thought Gilly would try to find him and get information from him and use that information against me and against people I care for.”
“All right, what happened?” Mason said.
“I wanted to get some money for him. I didn’t have very much money in my purse, so I went to some friends who I knew kept cash on hand. I’m not going to mention their names but they cashed a three-thousand-dollar cheque for me. They don’t want to be brought into this and it’s very understandable why they don’t.”
“Why don’t they?” Mason asked.
“Because they keep several thousand dollars in cash in the house all the time and if that word got around it would simply make them a target for holdups.”
“That’s very understandable,” Mason said. “Now, what happened? You got the money and rowed back to the boat. What happened when you got aboard?”
“The motor was running, idling. I tied up the dinghy and boarded the boat and went down to the cabin. Then I saw this figure up in the bow, pulling in the anchor chain. I thought that it was Fordyce. I switched on a light in the cabin. The man at the bow of the boat saw the light, made a half-hitch of the anchor chain around the bitt in the bow of the boat, turned and came back to the cabin.
“Before he entered the cabin he had engaged the clutch and the boat was running forward at slow speed, dragging an undetermined amount of anchor chain.”